i didn’t eat last night,
not because i didn’t want to,
but i forgot, and then it got late, like after midnight,
and i became too tired to fix anything,
even too tired to warm up Poptarts,
so i went to bed hungry,
feeling like i did something wrong and this was my punishment,
but i don’t know what exactly i did wrong
i got a work email a few months ago,
but i never opened it,
not because i think it carried bad news,
it’s just, i didn’t want to deal with work at that time
because it was a friday, end of day,
and i thought i set up a reminder to check it the following monday,
but here it is, 3 months past,
and the invoice has come up overdue
tattoo mold growing just under the skin,
flesh-eating, discolored, growing into the bones,
the surface simmers with a dying breath
escaping through lungs that can’t forget
Fred Aiken Writing 