Hikikomori

checkmate

we are broken down bit by bit,
we
drain away by the minute, the hour, the week, the
month, the year, we
leak away
in cafés, backyards, stadiums, parking lots, in
parlors of chance, in movie houses, at church,
at clambakes,
we dissolve
we dissolve while
putting on our shoes, while
putting out the cat, while
turning out the light,
while clipping our toenails.
so we continually dissolve from substance to
shadow, endlessly
dissolve while listening
to bad music or in total silence,
forever dissolve
while reading old love letters and new books,
during peace and war,
on and off TV.
thus our lives dissolve and dissapear between the helmet and
a high-heeled shoe, between an olive seed and a buried
corpse, between a lost key and the exposed film, between a
child’s smile and the magnolia’s scream.

Charles Bukowski