Denver Doldrums

I wrote this lil' mug a couple of years ago when I was living in Denver, jobless and hopeless, away from everyone I knew and loved, struggling to make my way and spending a few hours a week at the local plasma donation center just to pay my rent and put gas in my truck. Sad days. Great days...



My blood fills an empty plastic container,
deep murky undercurrents swirling with life against the sterile backdrop
of a synthetic case,
hope for a stranger I’m told,
a hole in my arm
and the taste of metal on the ends of my teeth.

I'm surrounded by empty faces,
lower class lot from the city’s streets,
all want a few dollars,
who have their own woes,
they recline watching me,
idle stares void of curiosity,
in the heart of a lonely Denver,
our existence more alike than anyone knows,
confused about our lives,
about how we should face the day,
whether a night is worth sleeping through,
whether any effort is worth anything.

Sad music plays over the humming machines,
drone noise binding us together in solitude,
no one knows I'm lost,
they just know I'm here,
Denver,
the broken parts of me hidden,
stripped to the roots of my memory,
fevered they call me home,
tugging,
away from assassins and gunfighters,
to my childhood where nothing has to make sense
and I'm always safe.

Still my stubbornness keeps me in the fight,
undependable legs shaky beneath me,
I wrestle through tears
that can no longer remember why they fall;
a lost love?
a lost home?
a lost way?
I decide to strike out at this remarkable city
until we are finally friends.

4.12.05