TEN PERCENT DEAD
At first I thought it was an expanding mole,
But instead on my face was a penny-size hole.
I looked a little closer and the mirror said,
“It looks, my friend, like you’re ten percent dead.”
I felt somewhat off the whole day long,
An eerie feeling I didn’t belong.
My arms and shoulders were drenched in red,
Just like that I was twenty percent dead.
No longer able to stand on my feet,
I fell to the ground with my heart’s last beat.
How could I know what lay ahead,
Being a man now fifty percent dead?
From high above I saw the shell
Glimmering vivid as a tolling bell.
I saw him slumped over at the Tip Top Tavern,
I saw his soul, a cobwebbed cavern.
I thought to ask him
Why he did what he did.
But the time for me had finally arrived
To leave and become completely alive.
(Photo by author)
