either or

I wake up nowhere in particular, some fuzzy hour in some shabby room. I turn the joint over top to bottom, and still can't find the will to begin again. The blood won't answer, and the ghost doesn't know. Adrift on the wind swept edge of nursery rhyme, casting shadows, kicking stones.

There is that vague whisper of wanting, the clotted breath in the icy air casting shadows on the yard. The flesh grows cold as it presses through the hours, placing its faith in a room always nearing. A fire always ready for the failing light. Some smoke soaked future always fleeing the inferno. Some drift of instinct into the frame of the flash, that instant mistaken for the mold.

The ache is earned like afterglow, the echo of some cherished repetition. The photo tattered and creased, the feeling clinging on and on. The days labor away at each stillness, devouring the creeping spaces between every blessed act. Rare bird or cactus flower, I can not find you. Some made up name, some bet on number. The chill in the air and the saw stroke of stiff joints. The distance between me and the knowing of your name the distance from wolf to dog.