Starve

Poverty runs rampant through my every waking hour, the first of the month approaching like a monster in my closet and it takes all my energy to keep the door to it shut. I see the well-adjusted routines of my peers sink into carefree weekend spending and casual acceptance of a life without jagged edges. One time I went to the dentist and didn't flinch at the bill, and I still remember how sweet the moment. That was years ago. Now I search for quarters in the sofa cushions to pay for a castle in the clouds, while I wonder at self-fulfilling prophecies and how long it took to drag the last vestiges of propriety out of me until I could finally sit in the ragged beatness I so long revered.

Because when you peel away all the layers of security, of civilized living, only art remains. I only have the Word, now. I cling to it, drag it through my anxious filters, force feed myself another rewrite to try to eke out the magic that can sustain me. I said I'd sacrifice everything for the Word and I had no idea then what Everything actually is but I am here now, reduced to only sentences, reduced to only piles of stories, I saw a dead cat washed up on the shore of the East River yesterday in the rain and all I know is somewhere in the back of my head, somewhere in the deeps of my chest, I still think
this
is
worth
it.