empty as the lights go out

The sovereign bonds that join night and dawn are played in reverse in the mirror, and the day goes its way. Stretched gray and supple, the sky is all but raining here at the cusp of dusk and night, here where the stars have abandoned us to the storm. Every direction is hurried traffic and birds on the line. Every answer ends up no.

So I sit here, hands aching from the weather and for something to do. I sit here, while the crows gather and the strays scatter for shelter, wanting the busy work of habit. Instead fingers fold and again unfurl, burrowing into pockets, scratching at scabs and stubble. They long for a glass to nurse or a cup to cradle, the sloppy internal magic of a lit cigarette curling its history towards heaven. Even the brief absolution of a cold and pouring rain, washing away this infliction of indifference. Even the empty gesture of an empty gesture, the notches carved from the thrift of rictus and nervous tics.

Bound in distance, bound in ribbons shredded by leaf and stone. Bound by the rumors spun from five billion years adrift in dreams. No-one ever sleeps enough to reach the ends their dreamings want for them. No-one is ever awake enough to see the direction their dreams head when they leave. Gravity always pulling harder than the sigh of levity, the turnings of the moon and the tides. In the moment of waiting the wait is all that exists. Tomorrow will come and break upon some fresh set of eyes. Upon hands too fresh and clever to fumble, clumsy and empty as the lights go out.