you look like hell

we wait

every day moves us closer now. two weeks. three

weeks. who keeps track anymore?

i don't. 

every day closer. every day nearer.

the world waits. shreds of newly cut hair 

on the dirty tile floor mean very little, or 

nothing, in fact. 

but people still ask. they still want to

know: "did you have a reason?"

i tell them no. we're still waiting. people

pass from life to the absence of life in

this room. 

empty metaphors confuse the damned

and those who pen them. trains and

bells bring us places we 

never dreamed we'd go

with a girl in a white skirt riding

up stairs on a donkey

or smiling from the balcony. 

we wait. 

while we wait, he talks of coney island

and the people there

who loved so much.

(they used to sleep on the beach.)

the days have passed and still pass in a 

never-ending transfusion of hurting and

hurrying.

crazies yell from soapboxes while we wait. 

presidents leave office while we wait. 

thousands die of aids while we wait. 

incoherence is written in the lines above and before

while

we

wait. 

and this doesn't mean anything while we wait.