Day After Day

What are we doing here?

Here on this planet?

Marking time with our jobs

and our bills and our trivial pursuits.

Working out,

being more,

doing more,

and for what?

We stuff ourselves

with food, and language

and books,

and try to pretend that any of it matters.

I do not know what any of it means,

anymore.

What are we supposed to want?

A new car?

A new house?

Another pair of shoes we can put in our closet

or under our bed?

Recognition?

What are we doing here?

Does anybody know?

I asked the man on the corner,

the man with the bottle in his hand.

The man who drinks everyday

and has urine on his pants.

He didn’t know.

I asked the man in the office

on the thirty-ninth floor.

The one in the Armani suit

and the lizard briefcase

and black BMW.

The one who fucks his wife on Friday

and his mistress on Sunday.

He didn’t know either,

although he thought he did.

What are we doing here?

What are we doing here?

Getting old?

Getting fat?

Marking days off the calendar

with a red ink pen.

It’s all the same day

after day.

It makes no difference.

It makes no difference.