The Emaciation of Life

I read from my latest books on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxOye9wk3Xg

It shows up grinding in an instant, in a century.

Instinct and desire.

A hunger.

It’s not in the gut.

Lower than that.

It doesn’t have a name.

It lives in the blood and the cells

of every human being.

A kind of rumbling noise in the chest,

like a record left playing in a basement�"

John Coltrane, or Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue,

faintly echoing through the halls of the mind.

This thing, this longing,

won’t be satisfied by food, savory or sweet.

It needs grit�"

something to come back

and mean it this time.

Even the body knows

it runs toward things

that vanish on the horizon,

that don’t want to be caught.

You start confusing appetite with memory,

and the lines get blurred,

and the mind f***s itself,

and the soul feeds on scraps of trash,

trying to satisfy that twisting knot.

The brain replays

the bedroom scene of ecstasy�"

2 a.m., sweat-soaked,

half lost in it, half gone already,

only to wake up

broken, busted, confused.

And at some point,

you stop calling it hunger.

You just settle in�"

like a mouse with crumbs on its face�"

to the rotten slice of life.

Author's Note

Just uploaded a new long-form poetry reading on YouTube.

Featuring work from Aluminum Cowboys and a preview from my upcoming book Searching for Nod (coming November). New reading, new selections, same simple at-home format.

Watch here:
https://youtu.be/kxOye9wk3Xg

Books on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/stores/Thomas-W.-Case/author/B0CL2RKDGX?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=xsU45&content

Appreciate you being here.

Reviews

[Soren]

Like the crumbs we have all experienced bits and pieces of this. You write from the streets and common man and all have shared a slice of this rotten life. Well done my friend

[Neville]

red93 just stole my thunder .. Neville

[red93]

Fabulous Thomas - complex, profound and strangely moving. Exceptional ✨️✨️✨️✨️✨️

[John the Baptist]

What is this "grit" that the mind so desperately needs? The first verse calls it a hunger, but a hunger for what? I think that must vary with the individual. It's that thing that tells us "yes, this is good, this is right." Unfortunately, that thing can recede with familiarity, and we must strive to find something else to relieve this "emaciation." That is the penalty for looking for validation outside of ourselves.