Day breaks, out of tune,
and morning finds its way, half-heartedly
to its well worn pedestal.
Stale air,
and the sheets are stained again
with the boredom of insistence of existence.

A howling routine.

And a calendar is checked,
(always full of hope that it will tell me something more).
Is it yesterday? Tomorrow? Or today?
I position myself, straight backed upon the waiting room chair,
and waste away the beginning of another other day.
Toasted insignificance
and a cup of wishful thinking,
and listen to the walls groaning
and the neighbours singsong sighing.

There’s a lethargy out there.

Harsh words scrape at the door.
An afternoon hides behind household chores.
And fuss and ado play charades in the yard.

She has seen the undead blinking.
(Or does she mean they’re winking?)
As she sits giggling at the in joke
Written long ago today.

What’s it like to have never been?
To turn a corner, never seen?
To turn another…

Where was I? And now I’m not.

I search and see not even, what could have ...

What’s it like to be in between?

A time…a place…..
My defining moment. Good grief!
What’s it like to have disappeared?
Or worse. Thrown out with the trash
and pissed on by the cat.
(No. I’ll have none of that.)

What’s it like to have disappeared?

An empty space?
A weeping sore?
A crashing bore?
A deaf ear turned?
A history burned?
A future scorned?
A lethargy born?

What’s it like to be in between?

Is it like a tiresome day?
Is it like a routine way?

No. None of that.

And not soon enough, evening arrives.
And squats and takes a pee,
and extinguishes any hope of an unexpected tomorrow.

Genevieve Barr
Copyright (2009)