BITTER DREGS
#poem

You don’t get it.
You don’t want to.
It would be too much to bear
if you let your thought go there.
Briefly unconscious, awakened to
hard concrete ground surrounded
by heels and toes, amazing
they don’t crush me, but no,
like clockstep they walk around
though occasionally a(n unmeaning?)
shove — I’m not a someone,
just a minor obstacle
unnoted in their busy day.
No worries.
Not like shoved down under
hard muscle, jutting bone,
stinking of beer and rage;
or waking from too brief oblivion,
broken pain, bleeding
tears, torn, bruised, a
colorful toy
made for pleasure.
Then the voices, echoes.
Harpies and Sirens, Furies
and sad old women. Fingers
shake in disapprobation.
Shrill voices call me beautiful,
in the way that ugly things are.
So bad, so pitiful, cardinal
status among the neverweres.
Struggling shadows, whispering
curses demurely lest anyone
notice and throw them further
down, below duration.
Never easy, confessing degradation.
The sin adheres. No one wants to know.