my friend is my brother though we do not share a braid of blood and he laughs at me for my wrecked nervous system and his laughter is of a timbre that is silent and is love

i need to find
the measuring tape
to measure the white plastic
sandwich board that
i two weeks ago painted
a matte black so pleasing
in its opacity that
were it a hole
i would wedge and pry
myself inside so as to allow
it absorption of my light,
transmute it,
gently emit it.

not this energy of
my current emittance,
this energy is wounding
in its insistence.

oh howling need.

i am blinded in this chair,
all this light
like pelagic trawl net,
beckoning with the yawning
maw of casual death.
death is casual after all,
common, as calm as
the matte black
once-white plastic
sandwich board for which
i need to find
a measuring tape.
a measuring tape
so as to
measure it and
adorn it with a
“welcome” sign to encourage
people to come to where i sit,
blinded on my chair,
hunting without weapon
for the safety of a
consumption that neither
deifies light nor
condemns its
absence.