death is not an option.

It follows me from room to room

close enough to be detected.

hints of a breeze

where there should be no breeze.

doilies flutter on the armrests.

the temperature drops.

I’m sneezing more often.

dead friends enter my dreams

announcing themselves as couriers

of the afterlife.

one guy from high school admonished

me for cheating on a test because

he was smatter than me.

so I cheated. why come at me now?

I feel like I don’t belong.

I feel like the toilet in the Kramden’s cold-water

flat on Chauncey street which is never seen.

I mean, it’s got to be in there.

I mean, so many episodes and not one audible flush?

jesus christ! what the fuck! 

so I’m erasing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation 

from the form which dictates my preferences.

who knows who’ll do it? I don’t. fuck that.