Today

Today it's like when this started
I'm full of snot and aches and self-hate
Only now I'm 55, not 19,

and the recurrent URIs settled
into a stupidly-named diagnosis that make it sound like I need a nap instead of a new body.

I always hoped I could be Somebody
so the brilliant hatred of self-hate would fade like all too-bright lights
and eventually be an anecdote I'd tell in the past tense, like something I grew out of or something that just went away.

Like if you read this poem-story
and like it
maybe the hard light that shows everything I think is bad and wrong and undeserving will dim and there will be something left
worth loving.

The Delusion of Coffee (Not Haiku)

Those first moments, I am filled

with heady possibility.

Lists of tasks & adventures-- 

cleaning bouts 

beach trips

long walks

reorganizing cabinets, closets, & drawers

dance classes

laundry!

But as time drips by, realization dawns

that these dreams are just that.

I am left with this same old body, 

which has never quite worked,

& ambitions larger

than a cup of coffee allow.

Written 6 w ago

Ineffectual,
I lie in my sickbed
with cats.

From 3 Years Ago

It feels like
slogging through muddy swamps
wondering if they're quicksand.

Some Senryu about What I Feel Like Physically Most of the Time

Exhausted slumping

and slogging and schlumping

day after day.

----------------------------

Dowager's hump, 

sore throat, brain fog, body aches --

Jealous of me yet?

-----------------------------

Getting horizontal.

Afraid Dowager's hump

will become my schlump.

------------------------------

My beloved Coffee

cannot help this exhaustion.

Maybe I need meth.