Dover

Life dropped off
like a swift cleft 
in the sea. It's floor
creaking open its
mouth and all just 
falls in.
Silently, a subtle
shift.

And somehow,
it gets darker.
You sink a few inches
deeper into the muck,
the morass of your life,
and the older you get
the shorter you become,
knee-deep in the quicksand
of the hourglass
kept down with the threat
of eternity. 

Suddenly,
you are pushing a cart
through the grocery,
praying you can pay for the
loaf of bread
and cheap boxed dinners,
a gallon of milk
and some toilet paper.

You are watering your own
small green plants.
And wandering around town
in the evenings alone,
eating dinner alone
with the television on,
for the quality of human voices
as company.

You forget to call your mother
and the water bill
is too much to handle
you worry about cold showers.

The White Cliffs of Dover,
and you're waving below,
a little bobbing buoy
with hair,
your white bathing suit
translucent in the waves.

A drop off
and this becomes your life faster
than you can remember what happened
before
this.
Was there ever anything?

Did you really make lemonade with real lemons
on the weekends?
Those books on the shelf-
you've read them?

You come home in the evenings
and sometimes go straight
to bed, without even
brushing 
your 
teeth.