the targeted ads
keep trying to sell
me a rope as a belt
if they really
knew me at all
they would market it
as a neck tie
and accept the easy sale

wavering between
acceptance of futility
and the homespun
anxiety born of
trying too hard
both lead to the same
sleepless nights
wondering why i am
never quite enough
and knowing i was
never even close

the ceiling sags
beneath the bodies
hung from frayed ropes
a series of
maggot filled pinatas
ready to burst
from the errant swings
of dismissive thought

shiny new belts
made from nooses
handcrafted by small hands
in sweat shops hidden
within urban sprawls
tiny children who
have inherited a
dying world built upon
the bones of slaves
chained to feelings
of worthlessness
before being tossed
in with the compost
where the larval dreams
burrow deep enough
to poison the soil

my face is purple
as i try to scream
but the words
are lodged firmly
in my larynx
strumming a cacophony
on strained cords
bound in a prison
of cracked cartilage

i sit at the stream
trying to pan gold from
the slurry sluicing
from necrotic wounds
fishing for dreams
in the run off of
nuclear spillage as
the sky falls down around me
wishing i were anything
but a wasted life

the computer sifts
through my every thought
yet instead of ads
for lazy days spent
holding her tightly
they only seem to offer
a means to an end
watching in real time
as the artficial intelligence
learns to differentiate
the subtle art of
giving up from the
instinctual drive to
simply give in to fate