Do you hear that ringing?

Like swarms of bees trapped within my head,

Every buzz another stinging reminder that, that future will never happen.

Maybe the ringing was a doorbell

Reality knocking on a shuttered window, begging to take shelter from the storm.

It was the conversation on the couch that snapped me to attention,

Smelling the roses after a long rain,

Seeing the sun after a long night.

My countdown has gained weight, devoured another year as if it were the thanksgiving turkey.

Swearing on my bones that patience was the weight that will hold me back again.

Proving the point that I possessed no hope of that tomorrow,

The cobwebs were pulled from my wallet,

and the void of currency in the bank was demonstrated on a thin paper receipt.

Do you see that neon sign?

The flashing flood warning sign too far down the road to properly read,

A foreshadowing that my aspirations were to be drowned like cursed fish.

The first pebble that caused the landslide was buried beneath the rubble,

Suffering under the promise of no more sunlight,

Hidden away from the world as to not be at the end of the pitchfork of blame.

Weather it was the lingering smell of the rain

Or the roses,

I realized that far away get away had been lost in the constellations.

Devoured by a black hole, disguised by the blanks in the sky,

The hope that had worked more than my heart had burned out.

The call from reality in the late hours of the night,

Was the one I had dreaded

Like parents who had given their children the car keys.

How should the morning coffee’s purpose be interpreted,

Interrupting the too sweet dream or, for waking me up in time for life?