Concerning Metaphors

I was conscious that I was destroying myself

but I did not know how to care.

I would get hypnotically lost in a song

or the way my right wrist hurts when I wake up,

that’s how I would get away if I could.

I kept reading Marquez or Hemingway as if I would learn something new.

The blade of my survival knife rusted where I held it in my mouth,

because I did not ever clean it afterwards.

It wasn’t that I wanted to be a pirate, but I wanted to see what happened.

And now on the blade there are these halfmoons of my lips.

The knife is more durable than most things I own, and what story does it tell?

I do not know. The water washed most things away

but tomorrow my wrist will hurt.