sanctify

I leave the porch-light on, though there is no-one coming. I stay awake in a half-reverent drowse, watching the television as if I was only waiting for something more. The vision just out of sight, so welcome despite all these fables of lessons learned hard. The desire that final realization, your absence and the meaning of need. The light left on, pushing on that earnest dark.

Writing it down, even though most of it was missed. This rote comedy of mistake and adoration, the way I only cling to the least detail while the whole world won't know. The way I burn my fingers, smiling and playing with fire for the ashes. The way the cold holds me from the inside out, as I sit on the porch in the night. Thinking of you though it only doses me with ghosts and aches.

There will never be words enough, these brutal truths and rarified blessings always well beyond my competence. There is never enough light to find the time or the talent. Just these lonesome habits of hospitality, pitiful bulbs and dusty switches. The technology of uncertainty witnessed, the drift of hungry fingers across these seas of plodding ingenuity, graceless and without pause. I offer up those gifts set forth by others, just a poor man's portion huddled in a greasy tent. This little ritual all I have to find a way, heaven only living as if it were already here.