Rafters

Thin manila rope, the cheap stuff you bought at the hardware store on Commercial Road, singing its little dry creak up there in the rafters like a drunk humming off-key. You, dangling in the middle of your one-room shithole, toes pointed south, shame finally heavier than the rest of you.

Nina Simone on the turntable, needle stuck in the run-out groove, click… hiss… click… hiss… “My Baby Just Cares for Me” looping like a sick joke while the real baby (that mangy black cat) pissed itself in the corner three days ago when it realized you weren’t coming down to fill the bowl.

The stain dried yellow, the stink baked in, same moment your bladder let go and the last little bit of dignity ran down your leg.

Forty years of nothing, forty years of cheap wine and cheaper women and jobs that chewed you up and spat you out into the same crummy room. then one Friday you tie the knot, kick the chair, and the world doesn’t even blink.

Landlord let himself in Monday evening with the spare key on a green plastic tag. Found you swaying like a broken metronome, tongue fat and purple, eyes open like you were still trying to figure the bill.

He didn’t scream.

Just lit a cigarette, looked at the cat, looked at you, and said, “Jesus, mate, couldn’t you have paid the bloody rent first?”, the needle still going round the dead wax, looking for a song that isn’t there.

My baby just cares for me.

Sure she does.

He closed the door behind him, left you swinging in your own private jazz club, ticket price one neck and a lifetime of losing.

The rope creaks.
The cat doesn’t give a shit.
Perfect ending.

ever mounting debt,
the summons, the court letters,
pills and booze and fags.