I Didn't Want Some Help With That

There's no magic for what I've got

If there were

I'd have been cured long ago

I sit here

Or I talk here

Or I eat here

And listen to the wind

Or the rain on the porch roof outside my bedroom window

Or the people screaming in the street for reasons I'll never know

Mostly women

Or the gun shots

Probably just streets away

And I microwave frozen pizzas

Or make coffee

And just sit here

With nothing to do

And no where to go

And no way to get there if I had

And once in a while I'll jack off in the bathroom

It's easier to clean up in there

And I can look myself in the eyes and reassure myself

That I'm alright

And it'll all be alright

And I'm still alone other than the voices in my head

That wish they were real

But I don't hallucinate

So I guess they'll have to suck the cum off my dick

And hope for better in the next life

And I feed the cat

And scoop the litter

As much as my back allows

It's never really been much better

Not being on my own

Not since the worlds collided

And the real one took over

And I realized I wasn't a child

But here I am

Almost fifty, later this year

Still feeling like I'm twenty-one

What's the use of it, though?

There's no one here to celebrate another run around the sun

Or to fuck me until I cry and kiss and fall asleep

With his lips on my neck and his arm on my thigh

And his cock still wet and spent between my legs

Or mine between his

These microwave pizzas look and taste like cheesy shit

But I'll be damned if I'm going to use the entire oven

To heat one of these fucking things

I miss my toaster oven

These pizzas were still mostly shit

But they were warm and crispy shit

I already know this is it

Maybe not the last of everything

But all I'll ever get

It's been too long with nothing else

To prove me wrong about that

I've been texting a guy thirty miles away

He drives

I have an apartment with no washing machine

And a back and two hips that will barely

Let me clean

And a distraction quotient that would rival

The best of ADHD

When it comes to getting things done

Or remembering they even exist

And a cat that I'm afraid might have fleas

And a vet that I'm leaving to get him into somewhere else

So there goes the insect relief

I should be getting a bed frame in the mail today

It's been years since I've had one

Not since Annie died beneath the box spring

Gone for the whole day before I found her like that

And made me afraid to let it happen again

Tony hates my rug

It's six by four and shag

And he hates it

I'm going to use it under the bed

I don't want to repeat that scene

He's already twelve

And he's hated to be held since he was six or seven

Or eight

But he loves to be near me

And I can't lose him like that

Or have him under the bed if the frame

Cheap as hell

Breaks beneath me while I can't stop snoring

Or my weight is breaking the back of the guy

Thirty miles away

If my back decides to heal

And the clothes and the room

Are clean enough for him

To finally come to see me

But the interest always dies

Or, even knowing, they don't like my size

I've been down these roads before

They all end with the dead

With the only reason to make the bed is to keep the cat

From tracking litter and dirt into the sheets

And I'm back to these barely made pizzas

And fucking my hand

Or the silicone sheath while I'm the only one watching me

I'm actually fine with that

But the silence outside the door

When I shut off the water after washing my hands

With no one to say hello

Or tell me they just made some coffee

Or ask me if I didn't want some help with that

Is frighteningly deep

** This is from a collection of poems I have been writing throughout the month of May, 2025, and may not reflect the day in May that it was written on.