hope is a coffee filter
you fill it with burnt offering
cascade tears
and suckle the tainted leavings
you get a facsimile of what you wanted
a participation trophy
a jolt of caffeinated misdirection
i watch this guy sit on the starts and talk in his phone every night
if he didn’t want an audience he wouldn’t overly dramatize his every interaction
at this point i assume it is a stable of women
there is no way one man so desperately tried to get his true love like this
he runs the gamut
how’s your day
false bravado
fabrications of ferocity
conquests and catastrophe
loud fake laughs
soft real sobs
the preeminent gangster and gentleman
he asks
he begs
she clearly declines
the subtle ballet of human mating rituals as studied by your intrepid host and professional documentarian
on the side
the woes of sexual frustration
the depths a man will fall into
the hope poured into the cheap paper filter
his every emotion carefully steeped in the basket
his confidence and hopefulness drip into the pot
bitter reminders of what was put in and the shadow that was his return on investment
but hope is overflowing
tonight he will seek his throne and try again to beguile his object of objectification
the pothole he calls desire
the weigh station on the byway of bewilderment and denial
his casual nod to strangers, neighbors, common sense
unable to see the difference between throne and electric chair
the crown and the source of his demise
and i watch
drink my own tepid cup of not quite what i needed
quietly survey the landscape of roving hunters
mad from starvation
seeking the one full flavored cup of ayahuasca firmament
the beacon of tranquility
even if it is crushed up tranquilizers and bleeding heart rhetoric
i bejeweled my coffee mug to read abandon all hope ye who enter the quagmire of the bereft
a little truth in the fiction
a little lube for the friction
another hit for the diction
another sip and casual mention
at least he is trying
i just watch
tap out another repellent ode to the agony
dream of such afternoons floating downstream to the source of the disconnect
instead swallow the pills and ignore the way they stick in your throat
always right there
hope filtering out the particulates and leaving something needlessly adjacent to what you wanted
wishes and wants and polka dotted peacocks
feathers at full mast
hypnotic and catatonic in equal measure
and this lump is only getting bigger
in my throat
on my spleen
self replicating instruments of self harm
until it is coffee and quiet and watching the world through dusty blinds
life is for the uninitiated
living is for the long dead
i don’t know which i am