the spoon thrown against the wall,
forced to carry out a facsimile of a drama written long ago,
without any intervention from the peanut gallery,
i stay out of whatever might be going on
and sip on celestial brews without a name,
so please don’t call my name
the river looks like a puddle of blood
flowing up north
towards the open valley extending out into a great big void,
like a pothole that needs to be filled,
but we don’t have the budget to do anything about
all the jerking motions i made as a teenager
seemed to have come back to haunt me,
as each morning i wake up
i keep hearing the laughter of my peers
echoing between my ears to no avail,
and no matter how much therapy,
i can’t seem to sit still
Fred Aiken Writing 