Manual Moping: typing up my turpitude

The crush of it all,
the never-ending list of things I must do,
it can't be that bad, really.
I sit all twined up around myself on the subway,
trying to become a singularity but less significant,
just a glob of aching joints that others cannot scrutinize.
But I do not want to blend in.
I can't, anyway, my skin is too shocking, my hair is not dyed that color.
I am out of place.
The stares press into me while I mumble to myself,
repeating the litany of my anxieties, my daily tasks,
so I can forget the gnawing that grief has been doing around my orifices.
I think it's hoping that if it chews away at my ear holes enough,
meanwhile liquifying my insides--grief is an arachnid,
I hope you realize, silently trapping its prey
and holding it motionless for fear of moving forward,
being caught again--while the pressure of stares and tasks and stagnation
continues to mount,
eventually my brains will come squirting out of my ears, nose, mouth.
All over the sleeping man across from me,
if someone gets on at the next stop who looks like her
and catches me unawares.

I am not an artist, it seems,
just a story teller.
There is a difference.