Toilsome Tedium

Toilsome tedium.

Ad hoc ad nauseam.

Only feeling numb,

only full of helium.

Tick tick tick.

Tap tap tap.

Click click click.

Clack clack clack.

Memorizing scenes of a play,

scenes of a day.

Routine repeat replay

each and every day,

plagiarizing the last in every way,

circling months born lame.

And years restarting an endless game.

I know dusty keyboards and sticky mice.

I know black-out twenty-two minute drives.

I know desperate paycheck’s exact time.

I know friends who know I’m not alive

when I know all I do is survive,

when I know all I do is waste my time

with what I know, staying safe inside.

I know you know inside my mind

I do nothing but fantasize,

while I know outside I barely reply,

it seems I only know how to sigh,

how to die without a cry

for help, for change, for caring eyes.

I know my play is one-act, eight-thousand tries,

but I don’t know a different life.