Poem of the Day 01.20.23

walking home from work in the rain

i think
about the big shots
who still get to work from home
three days a week

i think
about how they
changed our schedules around
for shits and giggles
and how now
i miss each bus i need to take home

i think
about city budget cuts
a forty-five-minute wait
in between buses
and the futility of existence

i think about the mayor
warm and home in his big fat mansion

i think
the streets are too dark
the neon too blurry
and how nights like this
feel like walking home blindfolded

i think
about how i’ve killed my eyesight
reading all of those books
that have given me nothing
but delusions of grandeur

i think of poets
and how the written word is dead

i think
about my broken couch at home
cold vodka in a tumbler
rock and roll music on the player
and my wife waiting for me

i think
there’s still two miles
left to go
on this goddamned walk
and how my feet feel
like they’re splashing around
in an ocean

as i shiver,
i think i’m underdressed

i go back
to thinking about
the futility of existence
which leads me to work
which always leads me to america

i think america is horseshit
and lies wrapped up in a flag

except i still love baseball

i think
my stomach is rumbling
because i’m always too sick of existence
to eat food at my job

i think that i live
in a microwaved nightmare
of car horns and wailing sirens
and madmen digging through garbage cans
of people too worn down
to find away out of this misery
of children in schools
being taught nothing 

but how to sit for eight hours a day
so that they can replace us
when the time comes

i think of world ending asteroids
falling from the sky
or nuclear bombs ripping through cities
and how it wouldn’t be so bad

i think i’m just wet
and worn out and tired tonight

and that an umbrella 

would’ve paid for itself by now.