The freezer is stuffed with empty boxes.
I would throw them away, but,
the trashcan is full, and the dumpster’s so damned far.
It’s late. The TV is static.
I never paid the cable bill,
so after awhile, all the channels
were snowed in like the Tioga Pass in January.
I prefer the static’s zs to silence’s buzzing.
Similar, but I’ve learned to tell the difference.
Last night I left the Frosted Flakes open
when I passed out off the remnants of
all the ‘almost gone’ bottles in the apartment,
so they’re stale now, too soft to enjoy, yet,
I eat some anyway, dry.
Milk goes bad too fast.
Tomorrow I may have to drink the Vermouth straight.
I’m not looking forward to it.
Maybe I’ll put in some applications,
or beg Sean to let me work at Sears again,
or at least donate some plasma.
The first is only two weeks away.
They say Rome wasn’t built in a day,
but the Great Library of Alexandria burned
in one afternoon.
When I tell people that, they say
I’m avoiding the issue, but I say no, no, listen…
It takes a long time to build something great,
but only moments to reduce it to ruins.
Author Bio: Zebulon Huset is a teacher, writer and photographer living in San Diego. He won the Gulf Stream 2020 Summer Poetry Contest and his writing has appeared in Meridian, The Southern Review, Fence, Atlanta Review & Texas Review among others. He publishes the writing blog Notebooking Daily, edits the journals Coastal Shelf and Sparked, and recommends literary journals at TheSubmissionWizard.com.