This silence
the empty space between my ribs I count, waiting

always...waiting,

for time to go by, only living for the next sound, acknowledgement,

so I know I am alive, not just trapped in this silent limbo freezer looking out through the gasps of life I take in, wondering

why everyone comes to me for help: I am the something holding your discomforts, trying to give them

away to God, but somehow my pigeon prayers get shot down on their way to heaven, and so I hold them

where my sleep used to be.

You want not my person, but only my ear, and I might rip it off and just give to you to keep

to sing to sleep with your nightmares of life that I keep for you in my soulbag, which is split ting at the seams, l e a k i n g out my own soul and dragging it on the grey dirty sidewalk as I walk to class trying to be

a good student thinking of Aristotle and implicit differentiations, but am too...tired

of measuring my life in seconds

and tired of measuring my life in pounds

and my food in calories

and my friends by Facebook

And my education in dollars until,

I become nothing more than a number, always a number, never alive.


Tell me: what is the derivative of the approximately 6205 days called my life...