waiting for vizzini

having made it this far, he

considers what’s left

weighs it against

everything that’s gone

nothing ever perfectly balanced,

scales always tipped towards the past,
towards what was,
the left arm always in low-grade pain,
the false spring,
eyes always irritated, always watering and
itching and for every bill that’s paid
there are three more still waiting

for every face he recognizes,

there are 20 that hold no meaning

there are the poems of people he will

never meet that mean more to him
than the mind-numbing passage of days
at his dead-end job

there is sunlight

but never enough

there is depression

drugs to make the mind forget

doors to lock against the

ideas of failure and hopelessness

small tarnished keys to let them

all back in again