23:13

i went to a show

to see a comedian

and he gave me what i expected:

laughter

continually chuckling

there by himself

and perhaps knowing how big of a joke

it was for me alone

them alone

we alone

to gaze at him

to try to feel less lonely

ourselves

*

our lives are spent

watching other lives spent

saying we won’t repeat the same mistakes

and certainly

we won’t just watch

*

the writer

is by nature

natural

giving a voice to the centipede who realizes

it has a way to move beyond its legs

that it is in the trees and the sky and the waters

even as it doesn’t know how to swim

despite it all swimming in it and the writer

who used to dab ink people but now drowns

in a a screen with dim understanding of how

it works and how he is reflected in it

and how it too, just as before, is reflect in him

without narcissistic bent

though he looks a bit fat down below

inflating with outside waves that say

hello and a goodbye simultaneously

light tired of dark

dark retiring into light

the centipede crawling throughout

not reading the time