tonight i am going to a funeral.

and i have a confession to make.

tonight, almost will not cut it, anymore. this
has become an annual trip because
i know a shadow called disease
who does not sleep. i am seconds
away from pulling my hair out, and
yesterday on the bus i believe i was
quietly losing my mind. (my basement
is cold and home to spiders and ghosts
who turn lights on. they are not
environmentally friendly.)

tonight i am almost, almost ready. i will put
my hair up and dress in nice clothes
(wrinkled because i never iron) and
stand up straight and tall and strong
and everything that is the antithesis of
the mush that my insides have become.
(pull out the pin and run) but i can't.

tonight this must be someone's
idea of a joke.  i will take the derivative
of this world and write us a new one
with binary code and imaginary numbers.
because some wax-doll changeling fairy
has taken your place several decades
too late (where are you hiding?) and you
will not look like something that ever lived.

or smiled.  or loved.  or told corny jokes
or went on alaskan cruises or took pictures or
laughed to crying at waiters who looked like
grumpy old men from back home.

tonight i have a confession to make.

i am almost
i am not

i will never be ready.