A Day in the Life: A Poem in Dialogue

Part 1: A day like this.

M: 

You wake up on a day like this.

D:

There is an alarm or there isn’t an alarm.

M:

Either way you are robbed of your dreams.

D:

You wake up on a day like this.

M:

There was something in your dream that made you horny but you can’t remember what.

D:

There are clothes to wear.

M:

Appearances to be made.

D:

Coins to grift.

M:

You wake up on a day like this and the poison of living seeps in.

D:

It’s one of those days where the moon shows up in broad daylight.

M: 

You don’t tell people that every time you wake up it feels like you’ve lost something.

D:

What did you lose?

M:
Your wallet?

D:

A taste of the infinite?

M:

Something to do with the unshakable notion that you’re not where you’re meant to be?

D:

You brush your teeth.

M:

Or you don’t.

D:

But you probably do.

M:

You drink coffee or tea or whiskey.

D:

You take a shit.

M:
If you’re an overachiever you take a shower.

D:

There’s breakfast. They say it’s the most important meal of the day.

M:
But we now know that they only say that because the breakfast food lobby is more powerful than the other meal lobbies.

D:

Did you know that America invented the breakfast?

M: 

Showed the chickens how to lay eggs, and taught the swine how to be delicious.

Part 2: Doing things

M:

It’s time to do something now.

D:

There are so many things to do.

M:

So many choices that you can make if you choose.

D:

A day is filled with possibility.

M:

There is no possibility.

D:

A day is filled with possibility.

M: 

Everything you do is at the expense of something you could’ve done.

D:

This is called Opportunity Cost.

M:

You try to read a book and have an orgasm every day.

D:

Feed the brain and clean the pipes.

M: 

You go to your job if you have one…

D:

and you make your bosses rich.

M:

Maybe you’ve convinced yourself that you like your job; that it’s tolerable.

D:

But somewhere deep down is a nagging suspicion that it could be a whole lot better.

M:

You bury those hours in an unmarked grave and go back whence you came.

Part 3: Going home

D:

On the way, you notice that everything is a territory. Barbed wire strangles the frontier.

M:

You eye your neighbor with suspicion. You think he’s trying to take your shit. You are not your brother’s keeper.

D:

Everything is a copy of its realer self. And you begin to wonder if you’ve ever seen anything real in your life.

M:

You drink to the unrealness until the copies are blurred. You write in red lipstick on any surface you can find. The message reads, “Babylon has fallen.”

Part 4: Time to unwind

D:

Back in the confines of your abode you play loud music loud, pour more drinks, and make a toast to everything in your house: chairs, lamps, tables, your own shadow.

M:

You toast to each individual piece of cutlery in your silverware drawer, and their corresponding shadows.

D:

You toast to gravity, wind, and the concept of linear time.

M:

You toast every historical figure you can think of, from Sam Adams to Emiliano Zapata.

D:

Eventually you toast to the act of toasting. You toast to the act of sleep.

Part 5: Bedtime

M:

After you do whatever bedtime rituals you’ve accumulated over the years, you settle into your sleeping place.

D:

You dream of a world without fences and you are free to move in any direction. 

M:

You burned all your money and that’s okay. You don’t need it anymore. Money is only a signifier for the era of brutality.

D:

In this world everyone is nomadic, moving from town to town on horseback. 

M:

Cities are supply stations and the sky is free of spectres.

D:

This is what you dream every night. And every morning you forget.

M:

The dream is what is lost as you move in a world of ghosts.



M L Woldman is the founder of Austin Poets’ Union and former Editor-in-Chief of Voluminous Crux Magazine. They have appeared in Austin Chronicle, The Daily Drunk, Dwelling Lit, Selcouth Station, and Serotonin, among others. Twitters: @MLWoldman @atxpoets

Denver Williams is a musician from Fort Worth, TX. He is the host of the Blah Blah Blah Yadda Yadda Podcast. Twitter: @DenverWilliamsx





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