fireworks

All the smoke has gone to heaven, the ashes left us to build what we might of this world. Blood drawn in tiny vibrant vials, filling guts with the potential for eggs, wings soft and translucent in the still air. Breath spent on aimless conversation, stained like glass, drained of any but the most measured of purpose. How subtle the infiltration when so little spirit is left.

The random allotments peal and retort, a boom here, a spark there. Whatever seems to be deemed worth all this hew and cry. A lit punk explodes with audible disappointment, someone's 808s making more impact that all that wrapped powder spent. The wind is as gentle as a vague hint, cluttered with silt and ghosts. There are no rumors left, out here in the guileless night. Only the lit and the unlit, and all the variations in between.

You know enough to hope for nothing. You know enough to feel the limits left allowed. Staring towards the stars, speaking about nothing. This etiquette of a history long since rendered into myth, war stories and antiqued laughs. This dead end engaged in antecedent and dissembly. Tailings and slag and a miser's portion, this inertial libation. Another habit tipped, like a gentleman's hand or a braggart's bluff. Another small ritual spent as the darkness consumes it all.