Today Won't End

i want to be alone.
not give reasons for why i am engulfed
in hopelessness.

me. who would never give up hope.
because it is my birthright; the name i was given
so i would never lack for it.

but it is failing me
at least for today.
hope is gone.

and i wish i were gone with her.

why can’t i plant a seed and be there to watch it grow?
why is there no place on this earth for me?
why has my right to live been taken from me?

why must i go on?
to what end? for what purpose?

today is a day in which there are no answers
to life’s most difficult unanswerable questions.

today is a day heavy with sorrow, despair.
today i would be anyone but me.
i would lie down and sleep so as to disappear.
i would take a walk; just leave for a few minutes
and never reappear in anyone’s life again.

today won’t end. and i won’t end it.

If

if i were a surgeon
i would cut open my own stomach
and remove the half ton of rocks that
somehow, when i wasn’t watching
found their way in there.

if i were a doctor,
i would listen to my heart
and confirm that its beat
was dangerously slow and pitiful.

if i were a dancer
i would retire,
knowing that my career was over,
for there is no joy left in me.

if i were a singer, which thank g-d i’m not
i would burn my guitar, along with my sheet music
and tear off my ears and lips and tongue
knowing that any need i ever had for them
was no more.