from the mud

We're all waiting,
but I wonder what we're waiting for.
Maybe at the end of this,
it's just more of the same.
We hold out long enough to
hold out again,
infinity, our only friend.
And we replay the same sad song
until we
can no longer remember the tune.
We hum to ourselves,
but no one joins in our doom.

And then,
nothing
more than silence
until the next crescendo
brings us to our knees
and we weep the notes
again.

but no one is listening.

The chords are all the same,
and the bars resemble
the music you're used to
hearing.

And the Devil plays the flute
in time to the vicious
things you've seen
your whole life long-
a broken bone that refuses to set.

The torture of it is never being able
to look back
at those curves in the music
so you can expect what's
coming next.
When it happens,
it's all too familiar.

and you're done again.

To wake up and look about at the plain
white walls. Machine guns rumble out
at the back of your skull
where it's soft,
where you remember everything
until the next go around.

And being dead is a joke
set to sound.
White noise, crumbling the last
shards of you.

You happen to look for a second,
but the images are fleeting.
A blur of a blur
and nothing comes together
to make it whole again.

You're better off living, but to what
extent?
Everyone else is laughing,
but you seem to have missed the joke.

What does it mean when nothing is pretty
anymore? How does it sound
from the bottom,
looking up,
hoping to see
the sun?

We're all waiting, but
what are we waiting for?

and no one is listening.