it does not matter that you're sad

that you're alone, beset and yet bereft

lost everything that others calmly, blandly, often coldly have —

no lover now, no child, no mother, sarcastic ruins of career

no one to tend or touch or trust

survive somehow on smiling nothingness through each harsh day

and hate still pulsing comes, resentful glares

cruel silence and cruel words

each chance to wound leapt on as precious prize

and wielded swift, sent piercing

safe only when alone, behind locked door

or sometimes, briefly, when without

with roving strangers

you look, you smile — and swiftly gain

their sudden stranger looks, their warming smiles

tiny sparks that should mean almost nothing

now spurt the only brilliance in a dismal day. . .

and that dependence, wild weak need

for sight of random stranger's far-off curving lips

itself another shaming, crushing, spirit-breaking hurt

just one thing worse

the burning inner truth

knowing you are longing, seeking, courting

those sundry turgid uplift muscles

thick-flexed at corners of any passing stranger's mouth

why in hell do you still eat

and sleep and swallow vitamins?

why maintain, take care

take care of what?

so very bleakly clearly death is best

*Depressor anguli oris, Zygomaticus major,

Zygomaticus minor, Levator labii superioris, Risorius