The Prickly Edge of Silence

The sun rises like a forgotten bruise,  

blinds dancing shadows on a stale wall.  

No one calls out my name,  

no alarm clocks with their foolish urgency.  

The coffee brews thin and bitter,  

but I drink it slowly, tracing the cracks  

on the countertop, the veins of something  

once alive, now petrified into granite.  

Freedom is a dirty joke some days,  

laughing at itself, a dog chasing its tail.  

But loneliness? It gnaws under the table,  

quiet, patient, a rat with silver fur.  

I light a cigarette and watch it burn,  

ashes tumbling onto the empty sink.  

The telephone is silent,  

its cord coiled like an indifferent snake.  

Out the window, the gutter holds its breath,  

the street hums with the absence of footsteps.  

I could go anywhere, be anyone,  

but the world wouldn’t notice either way.  

So I sit with the skeleton of the day,  

its bones scattered but strangely familiar.  

Freedom and loneliness, twins in the mirror,  

begging for one more shot of whiskey.