went negative by a nickel
and that began a spiral
that ended up at seventy
dollars in the hole
in the fifteen minutes
between getting paid
and transferring the funds
five cents took me from
groceries to staring out
into another insurmountable
crisis of scraping by
the bloody fingernails in
the prison walls the only
proof i tried to escape
just another emaciated
corpse lying at the bottom
of a captialism tinged hell
hoping for a merchant with
a ready supply of salvation
a fucking nickel falling
between momentary transfers
erased the excitement from
a morning of structural
deficiencies held together
by scotch tape and dreams
too much for a fool to
expect when life is a series
of ever worsening catastrophes
and five cents spells the
difference between breathing
and suffocating on the stale
air let out of cancer ridden
idiocies painted in pastel
shades of cursive hopelessness