The Scent of Stagnant Feet...

Here yet again
in this place I'd rather not be
trying to imagine someplace else
somewhere to go or to be
But I'm here again
and I don't feel like me
I feel something else
in a way I can't see

I sit here with the hours
waiting for them to turn
waiting for restorative powers
to light a fuse, and not just slowly burn

I want to walk-out, but I wait
confined by some phantom or fate
feeling the flames of no heat
smelling the stench of stagnant feet

I try to think of how to leave
but I'm drawn to the stink of rotting shoes
I'm not able or unable to grieve
just paralyzed without clarity to choose

Breathing in the scent of stagnant feet
appalled in respiratory retreat
Is this the smell of where I've been
of the stench of what waits till when

Waiting with the wafting scent
My eyes begin to water
or maybe they just cry
Is where I've come from
no more than where I once went?
I am now just some rotter?
Have I yet to die?
Is this my lament?

In this place I'd rather not be
trying to imagine someplace else
somewhere to go or to be
I don't feel like me
I feel something else
and yet still I don't flee