Black Hole

You look at me

and see a father of four,

good job, somewhat talented writer,

likes to read and drink coffee,

teaches Sunday school at church,

but don’t be fooled;

I’m the one your mother warned you about,

staying up through the wee hours

scraping the outer reaches of my mind

searching for purpose, for meaning

in a world that chews us up and spits us out

like mangled chicken bones,

fighting that urge

for one more drink, one more shot, one more hit,

one more bullet to the head,

with white knuckles bleeding,

howling at the moon and cursing God,

horny as hell,

looking for love in women half my age,

hookers and alcoholics

filling in the cracks in the walls at the bars,

living like a rat

scurrying through the garbage,

looking for any scraps I can find,

like a black hole

that sucks everyone and everything,

all life, all happiness, all goodness

into itself and destroys it,

shattering everything into oblivion and darkness.

But I put my nice clothes on,

stretch my fake smile across my face,

turn my analytical mind away from itself

and towards algorithms and complex problems,

go to my job, go to church on Sundays,

and hope that maybe some of that wholeness

will rub off on me

and not vice versa.