all in a day’s work

i get dressed
drive to work
call my wife
apologize for losing my cool again
punch the clock
smile at everyone
clean the filth
purge the shoals and herds
creepers and crawlers
oil stains and stringy, viscous fluids
fruit flies, rats and german roaches
industrial cleaning chemicals that ruin clothes
cold, hard floors strewn with the goo and blood of a million mollusks
sticky surfaces that seem to glue dust and small bugs to them
hot air coming in all directions from hotter heads
businesspeople meet to discuss business
fat drunks with red necks and loud mouths tell lies to each other
through glass windows, on the other side,
sick and crazy heads rest atop pissed-on, puked-on concrete
they beg and we shoo them away
their foul presence is bad for business, bad for sales, bad for reputation
oh they stink so badly it will twist your face
many people walk on by
i just keep working
pushing sweat from my tired purple eyes
its a sick fucked world
i'm sorry to have to say it
i'm sorry for the things i had to do just to get by
i'm sorry that my gut instinct is to smash things with sledgehammers
to rip out pages
to crush insects
but i am crushed underneath it all
underneath the weight of a world that just doesn't care
a world that looks the other way
who really cares if i give the low-living beggar a $5 bill or not?
craziest part of all
is if a bum dies on the streets in this town
it will take days, if not weeks, for anyone to notice
because he smelled dead all along
he was already sick with rigor and flatness
overcome by a peculiar nothingness
boot prints up and down his back
all as it should be
and so passersby will twist their faces
and pass on by
i will punch the clock
lock the door
walk on by a stinky, dead bum
drive home
take a steaming hot shower
scrape off dead skin
and pretend this could be any other way.