Charred

When life gives you a mental breakdown
you make lemonade
yellow paint, sugar
(blood if the mood strikes you)

just lately I'm a sundial countdown
my psyche measured by solar
positions and shadows but

before all this came the cerebral hydrogen bomb
picking up speed as it tore through the
atmosphere
incinerating my perfectly stacked life with
all the subtlety of a  rusty cleaver

lungs filled with fire
brain pumped full of doctor-ordered pesticide
gasping for air and coughing up enough charred rubble
for a funeral pyre