Lurching Through the Endless Days

Lurching through the endless days

I walk the street, reliably smug

Behind my mask and anonymity

When what I need is a hug

And reassurance that my humanity

Is seen and felt and recognized

Instead of endlessly paralyzed

By virus and helplessness:

A gesture of selflessness

Done even without name.

We all wander lame

When what we need

Could be to acknowledge

That we are too frail

To claim that holy grail

In pretense that we deserve it,

Such nonsense that conserves it

Behind a wasteful pride

Long since decried

By loving things, not people

Because it's an easy peephole

That dodges what are your needings--

Confirmation that no one can

Disturb the proceedings toward salvation

Of a worn-out nation:

Instead of enduring the bleedings

Of one day into the next,

No difference between them.

The essence of boredom pecks

And prevents us from seeing them

As things of separate existence;

We're left with subsistence.

They say you can see the horizon

So I'll watch as normalcy tries on

A new reality. Just like before?

Exhaustion, nothing more.

February, 2021