the cloudiness of this dirty, tiny window
is indistinguishable from the haze
of a hot summer sky, the sun
drifting along with infinite patience
there is an art in the way paint peels
a certain poetry in the cracks in the sill
that makes me think of old things
like the thoughts I've let wither into age
this disease of dormancy is rotting me
I embody a lie that believes it's dancing
yeah, that's me, doing what looks like poetry
and in the end, it'll kill me or immortalize me
I'm addicted betting on my own fragility
so I grip tightly onto some semblence of reality
just in case, but reality, reality is cheap
I have new realizations with every moment
I can't be your breathing machine
I don't quite make the grade
but the grading never stops
in a perpetual string of tests I never fail to botch
because I'm not the queen of anything
just a mime in the streets playing make-believe
throw me a handful of pity and I'll tell myself lies
it's because you see the greatness I'll be
but at night I lay quietly and interrogate
all the great things I should have been
until it all becomes more meaningless
with every day I sleep my way through
I whisper my screams into the drone of this fan
find an illusion of power in this motionless struggle
and outside the window there's yet another sunset
threatening to drag me down with it
because another round of fucking nothing
has just passed me by and I think it's just so sad
when the Earth turns at a faster rate
than I can find the energy to watch

© Averil Sperry