You have to step off the porch to get an unobstructed view, the street seemingly asleep, the night barely begun. The porch lights dazzle, the headlights push shadows down the street. Lit windows disguise all manner of crime and passion. The sidewalks nearly shine despite all the dirt. The thrill of footsteps just out of view. Some huddle of a stranger steams around a corner, at a pace half resignation and half escape.
There is nothing to see here. Just amounts and calculations, collected works and the aggregates of peculiar indolence. The trees shift, blown like kisses, blown like smoke. The stars shimmer and disappear behind clouds silking past. Just me in electric light and natural shadow. Just me in all my infirmity and cunning, leaning hard against a dwindling season, clinging clumsily to the husk of another night.
I linger in this house, another weary remaindered commodity without a shelf. I wait out the hours, watching ghosts and spiders gather and crawl. The words build up and run over the edges. The words swell until they are bound to burst. I await the hour of the unmade bed and the television lullaby. I await the moment of dreams loosed and sleep sustained, measured in ragged breaths and dazed awakenings. These walls counted down without numbers, waiting without measure. Waiting on that darkness down the hall.
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