Thirty days have slowly passed by
since the last time
I turned the bottle up
and poured its sweet nectar
down my throat
as if I were trying to incite
the ancient essence of Dionysus
inside the blood coursing through my veins
in this decadent modern day and age.

But what was supposed to be
an action toward salvation
has seemed to hit a wall
while traveling ninety miles an hour
because the holes in my liver
aren’t getting any better
from the makeshift patchwork
bandages put in place,
and so my body worrisomely withers away
into an emaciated skeletal frame
with a spine that can’t stand straight
to face the sweltering heat
that sucks away at my skin
while the weighty heaviness
of this topsy-turvy world
continues to pound away
with a jackhammer
upon my weary mind.

But I’m not complaining,
I’m not bitching,
I’m not moaning, I’m not whining,
I’m just weeping acid tears
from the soiled ducts of my eyes
that have turned blind
to the compassionate love
which once flowed freely
through my open heart,
but now floats dead in the river
like a bloated fish
that is poisoned and paralyzed
by the constant stream of lies
that keep buzzing through my mind,
lurking like vultures
that wait for the final collapse of sanity
so they can have a carrion feast
upon the rotten flesh
of my decayed kidneys and spleen.

This life is but a dream,
but it’s feeling more and more
like a devilish nightmare ,
from which I cannot escape –
a prison with locked gates
which I pound upon
with tired, apathetic gestures of violence
until my palms are sore and torn,
bleeding from the knuckles
which once were white
but now bite back
with a scarlet crimson hue.

I’m tearing at the walls
like a caged animal
with a hard-on of hatred
for everything I’ve become
while wasting away alone
in this psychotic circus of my psyche,
all the while realizing full damn well
that even should I break free
and make my way
back out of the cave
where the shadows are always
offering their latest temptation
toward depression and despair,
I wouldn’t know how to behave
in what passes for civilized society,
or how to act
when faced with the normal
day to day decisions
that keep life turning
through each cycle of the sun.

So I’m just melting away
with wax wings
that never dared to fly,
never learned to soar,
and never cared to try
hard enough to rise
to the Elysium heights
where the gods wait
atop the rainbow peaks of Valhalla
for those rare souls
who have the strength and courage
to keep fighting through the bullshit
of ho-hum doldrums
as they play out one by one
in these days of a life
that slip by like sand
through the sieve of a clenched fist
that wanted desperately
to hold something great
but winds up empty every time
with naught but salt in the wounds
and sorrow in the spaces
that make up the hollow hours
which tick by like thick molasses,
draining down the broken sky
to poison another dry well
that I’m running toward in the desert
as I chase the latest mirage
in this life filled with illusions
while trying my best to hold out hope
that things will get better with day thirty-one.