I wake up each morning

I wake up each morning to champion a cause of which I have no deep conviction. Even before my eyelids reveal the world in the selfsame sordid state of being, I persuade myself to repeat, No, I won't do it today. No, I won't allow it! It will stop! Just this day! One! I carry on until the curtain moves and a solitary ray of sun cuts through to spotlight a corner of the bed; until my alarm clock manages a half-hearted shrill for the sound of the taxi rolling in through the mindless filter of the glassless window; or until I blink myself to sit cross-legged in the middle of a one-way dead-end street on top of freshly painted double white lines poisoning the concrete grass darkly. My dear, I can't, and it doesn't; except that I do, and I have – too much, too often.

So I tell myself that I should listen to the sound of the hole, catch the light of the void, and drink in the dolled-up artless melancholy. Prick off the flow with a toothpick sharpened against my skull. Disperse the broken pieces like a skilful magician. Flick off the face as if it only ever meant less than a cheap Venetian mask. Kiss the picket line. Make to let go. Make to disappear. Find the largest box before yet another day drowns in tears.