oblivion

You trace your scars like constellations, you sweep the street eyes loaded and ready to bear. The night comes with its compliment of stars and ice all hidden by the bright and bloated moon. There is an itch the nails aren't reaching, there are pieces of a broken pot lodged inside your heart. It hurts because it is still beating, it hurts because the lights are on. You pace the yard and cast your shadow, then turn towards it and tramp it down. You know it's you because who else could it be, here in the middle of all this busted scenery. You know it's you because no-one would be inside this mess if they didn't have to be.

Again the wisdom of the knife, the preaching of the hammer. The murderers deny each time their tools their share of glory. The blind spot never entirely in the eyes. The critique the lost blaming the map. The cold thinks it is invited because you let the fire die. God always in the margins, messing with the doors and windows. It isn't the recipe that is the disaster when you consider the ingredients.

You write it down like it was gospel. You write it like the origin story of an open book. The words forget their purpose when spoken of so wrong. The mantra is the open vein, the dogma is the loaded pistol. Your heart will try to tell the truth, but language always takes its cut. The pain is measured by the distance, the stretch of light along the horizon, the sky speckled with ancient shine. The empty is so wide we make up things to fill it. The empty is so vast it is all there is. Painted pretty like those pictures in your childhood fairy tales. Painted pretty like your love before you bury it forever in the cold dark earth.