11.29.17

it is a sick sadness they live in
when pain
becomes currency, a thing to
lord over people’s heads
like a hammer. these feckless men
have soiled their pants.
they’re all sick.
the next man
you see, look at his hands, the skin,
the subtle stain at the tips of his fingers
from counting cash. he is one of them.
run.
look him not in the eyes,
look him not in the heart
look him not in the soul
look him not in the brain
for he has none of these things.
he is dangerous. this is a man
who has abandoned his own daughter
for a few digits in the digital space
where banktellers swear to him his
hard-earned blood-soaked cash
is safe, but they’ve bent him over,
(he doesn’t know it)
and they’re ramming him up the ass
(he is unaware)
that the warmth he feels when counting
his aggregated wealth is not happiness
but fresh shit dripping down his leg.
the sickness he feels when his worth depletes
is not anxiety over not having enough to pay for
things he does not need
things that are
absurd
excessive
things no man could ever need in a trillion
and a half lifetimes,
no.
the sickness he feels when he is poor
is the emptiness the rest of us feel
at all times, knowing this thing we’re doing
is a bullet train toward death,
learning the disastrous truth
that the present moment is false
and all the ones who love you
are either dead or dying inside.
in short, we are alone.
in length, there is no cure
and he is only learning this
fact four decades into his life.

Written at 1:03 at night, in my office, in Agoura Hills CA.