it is exhausting
this
inexhaustible
fire

sucking
the oxygen
from
the room

still

i burn
from within

the dying ember
of the very
first star
to simply

stop

when i say i don’t understand, sometimes that means everything, the metaphors make it impossible to see anything but the mud caked across my tongue, i am a grub, blind, lost, as pointless as one last glance in the rear view mirror, an unread message blinking in the dark, the perpetual motion machine running on the ghosts of tomorrow in the guise of today