My books of jokes is 100 pages long but the only joke is that language is never funny.

The mirrors shame my reflection into believing it consists of nothing but light. I can’t see myself. White permeates my retinas. I trace shadows on the floor. A man walks down the street out my window & I hear him humming a song that makes me freeze with terror. The song makes me feel like a ghost, like any reality I encounter is purely fabricated out of a desperate refusal of my death.

He is now next to a tomb but refuses to enter. An absolved fear, lost to pure anxiety. Symbols mark the walls. The entrance to the tomb spans to void, like dark. Heavy stone walls like being buried in ice. He turns away from the tomb to squint into the sun. There is no event. Turning back toward the tomb, he sees a small patch of milk euphorbia edging the perimeter. The plants glisten like polished mineral. No image. The next two steps include walking forward. This sand is hot, his map has been rendered illegible by the drip of sweat. He still cannot move forward. The glare from the sun pains eyes. Think of static & terror. No one knows what’s buried beneath.

I write vocabulary words on a chalkboard & sing hymns. To exhaust the prose poem like money. No reserves.