"pulse"
written after the worst by jake kilroy.

some evening,
after the day
(so broken
in color)
climbs
into bed,
heartbroken
and lonesome,
you'll watch
the news
with eyes
wet and still
and then shower
to get clean.
it won't be the last time
and it won't even be the worst one,
but you'll shove fingers down your throat,
unprepared for how good it feels to take action.
sounds you won't recognize will pulsate in your guts
as razorblades pump through your veins and arteries.
at least it's something, goddamnit!

and then you'll go to a comedy show in l.a.
where everyone's as sick as you,
the only yokels left alive,
all with the diagnosis and its cure so far away,
in a country no one can name, in a village no one will save.
so instead we'll ask for deliveries instead of deliverance
before finding god in the same line for handouts.

we can no longer write tragedies
because truth is meaner than fiction.
what a world.
what a time to be alive.
what a way to go to sleep.
how do you rise in the morning
when your heart feels like the shattered moon?

beat on, every romanticist recants.
that's all you can do.
in your tiniest of instances,
as the world haunts its patrons,
after years of adulterated hope,
with hot air so thick you can't see right,
you'll start to cry.
it'll be hopeless then.
it'll be hopeless for a long time.
drool will come.
tears will rot.
you'll dry-heave until sanity finally leaves you.
you won't consider character.
you won't understand time.
you won't remember anything
but this, your weakest moment,
your most exact nothing.
and you'll find steam,
a pulse somewhere,
motion adrift,
a fire incoming,
and then pop!
you're a lighthouse
suddenly aglow for any transport—
once as feckless as ambient storm,
now light in every sense,
in every direction.
the world waits,
and you stand,
100 lifetimes ready.