After Graduation

I have headaches and worries

and psychotic blurs of future jobs

and coat hangers holding solemn

jackets, torn from wasted days by

my wasted hands. I'll sit at the kitchen table

argue with my wife

and maybe have a drink. And so it will go.

Rather, I'd be wise to assume now is the time

to find a new route

live for what's to be done awake and alive

rather than skating by on a good salary and

no hope to survive this life of deadlines

specifications, stale coffee and office blinds.

If I remain innately divine, and follow the few last

gasps of true thought and hope I have in these old bones

I might make a right decision, an unbargained trade to my

future self, with a handshake and goodnight kiss.

Goddamn, The pages and pages of online research

bold letters, italicized guides and corkscrew insights

helping me plan a path build on unlit gas, ready to burst

if dropping the match, unless it remains unlit.

All I can do is write to console, and silently scroll

the pages of suggestions and guestimations of certified

educated undergrads who, like I, weep and hope

for a life which loans can be revoked

or at least to wake up and start the day

alive as when your head hit the sheets yesterday.