cluttered table, half drawn
sketches, graphite dust, eraser
shavings, coffee rings gleam in
the nascent dawn among the assorted
half emptied bottles of pills
with white caps askew

the dishwasher plays an ambient
death knell, recreating the womb
in frigid disdain

a lone cockroach darts through
the darkness, antennae twitching, slowly starving to death with the
rest of the brood

floating in stasis, a dust mote
hanging suspended in the ambered
visage of time immemorial,
a heartbeat half pertified in
fibrosis, a lump of coal in the
back of the throat of dream, choked
down to fuel the furnace gone to
ash in the chest of surrender

a spider sits in the center of
its web, spinning silken threads
as the sky brightens from bruise
to dim reflection of constant
aching over a dead world of
half fulfilled inebriation

the shadows congregate in the
stillness, watching patiently from
seas of exhaust plumes lazily
smothering a fool on the brink of
sucking in his last bated breath