Dead Lines

These contact lenses scratch against
my corneas, because tears have salted
them too often. The plastic edges begin
curling up, and I don't gaze at anything
too long. Blur--yellow--this is my office.
Everything is overdue in my world.

My mind tapes
whirl decades-old
messages
of not good enough
and why bother and nobody
loves me. And so I have
not tried, not loved. Ooh,
maybe that's where my joy went. I threw
out the wrong album, flung
it through a car window in 1994,
and it lay by the road in a
glistening tangle.

My stories bore me, and they hiss. I recorded
on an outmoded technology.