if the world is ending

then why not have cake and gin for dinner, licking 

the plate clean of frosting and then tossing 

it in the trash, no reason to spend silly time 

on dishes. why not smoke the whole pack, each 

one down to the nubby filter, flicking them into 

the gutter and not watching to make sure no 

leaves ember. why not press your body up against 

a stranger’s, a man who looks like a prom king 

but who validates some old teenage part of yourself. 

why not open the car door while going seventy, 

charge the t-bone, say no again and again to going 

into work, to polite smalltalk dinners, to any invitation 

that isn’t two cans of spray paint and a dusky overpass. 

why not shed your clothes, jump in the pond, do six 

somersaults underwater, just as you did as a child.

the pressure makes your nose bleed, just as your mother 

warned you. why not arise naked and bloody and wet 

just as the day you were born.