NOW YOU KNOW

how it feels
to want
something
to be there
& it's not.
Blink your eyes.
No, uh, uh.
Blink again.
No, sorry.
Once again.
Nothing
except
the validation
of your
emptiness.
A vacuum
that sucks
any worth
you've mustered
back into
your stomach.
Tomorrow
will be better,
you tell yourself,
& it might.
I can only speak
for myself and
it's not.
The book
is done.
It hasn't
helped.
The words written
only look dead;
the life
in them
goes on.

Oh, yeah--
Happy Birthday.

Norman Savage
Greenwich Village, 2015