my misanthrope

she filled up her memory with hate
fifty terabytes
like years, lost
in facing back, despising:
loathed hours
loathed love lost
and when i try to help her trash it
it recycles:
cached, bitter, black.

dragged her bagged sack of bones
up too many stairs, too much money
spent in deadbent gasps
of living death, until the till told:
TOLL.

the long toll suddened on her deep, white
ear. the earlock opened, all
the mortal coils unwound
with sound. that "it is time", that

TOLL.
the simple fee appalled her
with its simple 1, 2, 3
a simple rhyming scheme of heavy beats
bowled in her chest, a bolus lodged, dislodged
a boulder, and it dropped.

i am free, she said. i am not free.
nothing is. we pay, we pay.
it keeps us safe, that $, $, $,
that 1,2, 3.

the cruel addict
barked her smilebite
vast gnarled harping breath of siren-singed
calumny, calumnia, "HARK."

that slow joke, "HARK"
as if, in one wet breath, all hate,
all hot, the slotmachine of life
would rain out change, as if to hear the scream

I WON!

earthed and fused, i was
safe, safe, safe
the electrical fault
would have to wait
the fire drill
the fire drill
the little hiss
would have to wait.

i feel it wait
i feel it wait
i feel tight light
i sense the wait
i tense its weight
i have to wait
my electric fault
will have to wait.

earthed and fused
it keeps me safe
the drug retards
my fire escape.
i cannot snap.
i cannot flake.
the burning wire
will have to wait.

why is the trauma of static so dense?
i never liked those mosquito coiled
illusions
of safety in stillness.
alarmed the silent fire?
caged unconducted energies?
wires won't touch.
wires won't touch.
sparks don't match.
i won't wait.