Dear Diary

There's crass football on tv, a darkly painful hole in a tooth,
dried ketchup on the nightstand, that compulsive boredom of youth,
a flight of stairs in delirium, and a half-burnt receipt for truth.

(Is that Mahler I hear? Wagner, perhaps?
They sure don't seem a cheery lot, these dead chaps.)

Ah yes, the writing, I almost forgot. Just a moment, honey,
I seem to have misplaced my finely-tuned sense of theatricality.
It must be here somewhere close by, surely
awaiting my cue, rhyming in loops, rehearsing endlessly.