unbidden

The dream is so dull and typical that it was scarcely worth the sleeping. Stray cats and chain link fencing. The way that the wind has with the tides of trash. Waking is so similar it is hard to find a reason to stay awake. The body creaks and crackles, revealing new complaints and elaborating on the familiar themes of old ones. The mirror reveals fresh creases in the face that will not fade. Lagging chores and lapsed duties, the draw of the sweep of tree limbs waving to the heavens. Another ailment bent by little inclination, another nation to abandon, a stone skipped across the sea.

These scarred and unsteady fingers do their part, lumbering across these mysteries of language and plastic, typing out these lines that will not hold true. One tact taken, another direction unfolds, and the words all chase their tails. I watch the hands, I watch the screen. These sentences come, harsh and unbidden. Between the fitfulness of poor sleep and the parsing of these gray words, this small chore. The shadow laden with the heaviness of what isn't lit. The lingering ghosts, the pretty distances.

A sunken guitar, the voices of the dead rising from these parcels and tides of electricity. The sedentary magic of this or that opening secret passages and removing age old seals. The music plays and plays. I linger near this portal, bombarded by particles, ions leavening the spirit loose. These lives lived with-in the looking glass, bordered by summer air and the holes that culture digs in time. This life, lost in the tall weeds, wandering through vacant lots and broken fences. Words unspoken, cast into past tense. Words unspoken, written down the long lines of departure on the sands of this vast decline.