Another year gone by as I play catch-up
This year feels pivotal - but perhaps only due to my panicked obsession with numbers in multiples of five
(even, prime)
No, it stinks like rotting corpse, a cloying, putrid stench
Like Pigpen of Snoopy fame stumbling through a body farm
I can see the sweltering hot vapors of ripe funk even from here
As I turn the trusty (bloody) hourglass another (even) 12 times
12 times this year but maybe fewer the next and the next until the blood dries up
And if I could bear a glance as I pass a mirror, I’d see a slow-motion but otherwise effective cosplay of one of those wooden giraffe toys you never see anymore
You know the ones?
They fit just in the palm of your hand
Pushing the thick button-bottom collapses the spindly giraffe into a pile of bones
Those ones.
I’ll suck you dry with horrified, desiccated mouth
I’ll hate every second
Everything will pour through and back out the shaggy bottom
Because what was once merely empty now hangs ruptured with anger and atrophy
2025 is the trash pile out of which my flaming phoenix arises and shrieks
Too little, too late
Too bad, so sad
How can there be so much ahead and nothing left at all