I don’t know how to be yet

when I am being nothing that I used to be

in my rapidly fading workaday world.

I don’t know how to speak the language

of nothing.

I don’t know how to begin and end the day at the same place

and radiate contentment.

I don’t know how to say the things

that a person who is alright would say.

I don’t know if I will go mad

and I don’t know how I will know when it starts,

if it starts,

or how it will end,

if it ends.

I don’t know how to say I am a writer when the words won’t,

when the words, when the ……….

I don’t know how to be nameless and hatless in a community,

to be, for all intents and purposes, irrelevant.

I don’t know how to be adrift without a network,

with no-one watching me for worrying signs

when I don’t even know what the signs are

to worry about.

I don’t yet know how to be still

long enough to be

nothing,

so I can decide

if there is any something to be.

And what if I want nothing

and to be

nothing?

Will there be anything left to love?

And will there be anything left of me to care?