Rot

I fell asleep under the covers and it was there when I woke

This gnawing feeling, this dread. Getting older.

I wrote more poems in the faint morning light but nothing seems to work

My heart needs an embrace but I am all alone

Is it today?

My art can no longer sustain me, I can’t pick up a brush and draw

I can’t find the words to articulate a chore carried for lifetimes

Is this what it means to die for the first time?

They say

You feel this death, you feel yourself laying to rest in a mausoleum of your making

Where portraits of dreams hang on the walls, taunting; you reach out to touch them

But your bones grow into cement lodged in a coffin

Maybe people are really just ghouls walking about, you never notice

Until you become one.