THE DUMPSTER FIRE

I’m losing track of the horrors

The assassination
The truck
Fireworks in Mexico.

So much pain
and I’m forgetting it
every day there’s more
like Professor X
my mind is overloaded
with voices, everyone’s thoughts
and the villains want me
so incapacitated
I can’t resist.
Won’t.
Overwhelmed and afraid,
the only turn is
despondence
and booze.

We call 2016
The Dumpster Fire
because it isn’t just
the trash that burns,
it’s everything.
Uncontained, this plague
leaps like a dancer
to any place with traction,
spinning and spreading
until it infiltrates the
restaurant, its tables and
chairs occupied by
memories of laughter
and cupcakes. Now dead —
burned to ash, returning
upon the wind. The last
coals ember behind
the counter, below
the cash register.
The money fleeting,
receipts taken up,
plastic and metal pool
together, but the fire
-gone-
leaped to a new stage
just down the block.