Routine Errands

Dread does run through our city’s cracks
Walking to the store for milk is no simple task:
Get out of bed, put on clothes, take a leak
Brave urban hazards irritating in repetitiveness
Escalating from mundane to violent absurdity

Every jagged crack in the pavement is mapped:
Weight of countless footsteps, our histories untold
My ignorance: our paths cross like blind squirming
Parasites feeding on the organ network of our host
When its veins run dry we chew through wounds
Split open by the beautiful rot we caused

Public Service Announcement

Churches on every street
I could lose myself in
Communion with god

No different than
Escaping after work
Into the bottle &
Prime time T.V.

No different than
Nuisances like
Smoking in public

Breathing secondhand faith
Makes me wish The Devil
Would drag them all to Hell

Keenan Colditz is from a small town on the edge of the Mojave Desert that people drive through on their way to more important places. He studies fiction and poetry at the MFA program at San Diego State University.