There are no ashes
for disappointment
the intersection of hopes
and reality that rarely
Meets the way you want
The way you expect

Just a matter of is and is not
like a button straining to fit over jeans
worn down by the atrophied hand  of
Time
that slow grand mal that gets
us all in the backrooms

under the bright lights that shower
sick gangreen onto our bodies
floating liquid particles that ooze
in bulging sickness

The syringes to make us better
rendering us fragile
Roundabout the world
in a waltz with sickle cell heartbreak

Shattered glass fragments
breaking in unique ways
Across the wine-darkness
in ropy astringent modal jazz

A miles davis tune turned to the wrong
flicking signature, dying like a bulb
at the end of its rope
that intersection that never gets crossed

To rail at the future that wasn’t due to
hope, an incentive to make the darkness palatable.
And when it all gets too much

When the hope fades, there are no
ashes to break
the monotony
because you cannot burn what did not exist in the first place