The Unfailing Failure of My Humanity

By Richard Le Due

My life isn't interesting enough
to write about, yet I do.

The metaphors lining up
like obedient school children
or a firing squad
that finds salvation in following orders.

The personification more humane
than a hourly wage
turning life into a collection of pay stubs
and tax receipts.

I'm not even interesting enough to dream
of being eaten by a tiger.

But the poems refuse to surrender
to split shifts (Monday to somewhere,
unpaid overtime
worth nothing more than a check mark
on a page I'll never see),
to getting drunk on New Years Eve,
to the silence that precedes
and follows us,
until the jaws of oblivion
tells us we're done.

Richard LeDue (he/him) is the author of eight books of poetry. His work has appeared in the Words & Whispers, Neologism Poetry Journal, Duck Duck Mongoose, and other publications, both online and in print. His latest book, “Secondhand Salvation,” was released from Alien Buddha Press in February 2023.