Go Ahead, Bang Your Fucking Drum

The march of the condemned.
Twice a week if your lucky.
A few hours to take the boots off
and sleep on the hardwood floor,
or under a table in the kitchen.
A couple of sad nights of wine
to relive the worst years
and the lunch-breaks spent in the car,
choking on tears and self pity.
A vacation to the sewer for a
lousy laborer.

You get 7 days in a week.
5 to work,
1 to live,
and another to gather your armor,
and ready your mind
for the impending 40 hour silent march
through the foggy foothills of the battlefield.
The strange and unforgiving territories
that will always seem so foreign no matter
how many weeks or months are lost to
your delusions.
I have seen the dangers of keeping a
closed mouth, and settling into a comfortable life.
I see it in the grocery stores,
in they eyes of the young mothers
who grit their teeth, and shout in whispers
at their children; their desperate refrains
from letting the hideous truths
echo up and down the meat isle.
I have seen in it the faceless hoards
of commuters who learned at an early age
how to build a coffin;
another highway mile,
another nail into the pine.