It’s like waking up on the first day of a new century

having failed to drink yourself to death at an end-times

party. A failure that’s like waving goodbye from

the stern rail of a coal scuttle only to sneak back home

before the streamers have been swept from the dock.
It’s like a pain that arrives in the way an unwanted guest

might arrive, and stays indefinitely, and becomes

tolerable, lived in; like familiar, ill-fitting shoes.
It’s like pressing a pillow over the face of a lover

and then changing your mind, saying, nothing happened,

you must have been dreaming, go back to sleep.
So it’s almost like something self-inflicted as a distraction

with a razor blade, as if one hurt can assuage another

in an endless succession, like a vial of blood

reflected to infinity between opposing mirrors. 
But no, it’s more like opening a parcel where the entrails

within are still warm, and the gift card is smeared.

As if the distinction between inside and outside

no longer applied. Like a heart worn on a sleeve,

like an open front door that is both an invitation

to enter and an order to leave.