How to survive

It was just regular routine

of waking and masturbating

when the funeral procession

passed by my window

with a woman,

or what was left of her,

wearing white to cover

what wasn’t

while I grabbed

flesh hard and happy and good

just a bit tighter

ya a bit

like that

slower, fuller, redder

like the cars that clog the road

with their blinking eyes

for hallowed out ones

and I ask what the last thing

she saw was,

hoping it was a life like this

and if not:

stiffer, rougher, better

until release

*

Survival

is another way to say

you didn’t try

to do better

and what you’ve been

born to do

as no more than a lazy ape

listless and scratching the suit

that’s too tight

on its skin and hair

forgetting that an audience

is around

and is waiting for music

that is not a holler

for they have heard the wilderness

and fire that churns

and the disaster of all that grows

in themselves

while surviving