The Rent Is Due Again

I wake before the sun consents to rise,
A ceiling cracks like truths I cannot mend;
The fan repeats its tired lullabies,
A sermon no one listens to, my friend.
The coffee’s burnt; the sink is full of doubt,
The mirror shows a man I half believe;
He stares as if to ask what this is about,
And whether there is something left to grieve.
I punch the clock; it punches something back,
A quiet theft of hours dressed as pay;
The world moves on its indifferent track,
It drags my better questions far away.
Yet in this dull routine, absurd, unplanned,
I live because,
I cannot understand.