Are we just artifice? 

A mask by any other name

A billion cells and more

A hive-mind in constant creation

Life-sustaining, bill-paying

More energy and emotion

In motion, driven by desires,

stoking a fire, higher and higher

Knowing thyself, pushing past 

exhaustion: we can only

go as deep as the layers we see

Summertime skin-deep, skinned

knees, we feel the need to read and 

tend seeds, and breathe

Five senses tell me I am alive

and real and not artifice,

I am art.  

I don’t know what my world

is anymore, or if it matters.

I was part of his world,

and now that he’s 

gone

All I feel is loneliness and

emptiness and hopelessness

lining my heart with despair

and I fear saying the word

depression

but is that what this is: my 

future is concave, and my

mile markers are far behind

and I cannot see what comes 

ahead 

because birthdays come 

and go, and I feel the echo 

of when they mattered like

a sharp reminder of when I

mattered

and the life I was building with 

my love made sense; before six 

heart attacks, 32 stents, and surgeries, 

and so many wounds