My Familiar

You're so familiar  

I don't even know why 
I acknowledge you 
give you the time of day  

You keep hanging round here 
like a dirty secret
a grubby stain 

Fetid and fated 
addressed to me and only me  

In this way 
it makes me feel so special
makes me feel so chosen  

Deserving of this blessing 
and a curse  

But the trick
as always known
is to wriggle out from over or under
slashing wildly
and huffing furiously  

With peak inelegance
also discarding pajamas
at the bottom of the pool 

A rejection of destiny
a denial of the filthy path  

Every day
you awake
you must choose again  

God it gets so tiring
and God it leads to such exhaustion  

We begin to fall back down the muddy slope 
then it all comes round again