i long for a rest that knows no [bad word] from this place to quietly begin again.

i am the given up, i'm finished. i'm the dead horse i'm
punching. singing my name to the coward's song.
erasing everything that made me, i've severed the ties.

i gathered my things into two separate stacks:
everything i love and leave it behind.

it [bad word] in calamity and history. a broken
mouth choking on every word. i'm saying nothing.
this changes nothing. weak wrists willed the accidents.
this is the hanging, the moving on, there'll be no quiet
here until i'm gone. i feel outnumbered. these three
rivers of stagnant water. now i'm surrounded and it's
flooding over. it's flooding over in rain. it took the fragile,
it took the wounded. there is no movement here.

as i try to finally surrender these ghosts to the death
of my past life, i realize. they're meant to hurt.

my fever broke as i hit my stride
and the cityscape was just inches high.

this is the clamor. the beating of hearts collapsing with
cancer, the crying out from people still lost in the flood,
the mocking claque as they rise to cheer the coward's
song, as they sing, as i sing, as we sing...
medicate the loss.