psychoactive

I count the numbers, I learned the names, so the day must be different. I stalk the dust, I cast my shadows, I spill salt due to the usual dreams. It must be different though it all lies the same. I mind the fires  of some ancient spark. I drag the ashes with every staggered breath. The wind picks up and the ashes dance amid the shadows and the dust. I am still in this rising heat, slick with sweat and thought. I count the numbers, let them spell everything out.

Life is leaf and the brittle branches. Life is thirst and hunger and the old sharp shock. It is the spark that smolders, the cinders that warm with stirring. The genie loosed from the bottle, and all the King's men and horses can't fix the stopper again. The paw sets and unsettles, step by step as the prey is stalked. Wings spread and spill their shadows on down from the sterling sky. I sit in these scrambling shadows, the wind flickering light like a motion picture, known only by bird, bug and beast.

Everything so similar though the day is different. Everything in motion though I have stalled in my skin. The world falls into shadow, it climbs into light. Every breath spilled or spent, every arrow loosed flying and falling whatever the target. We seek the pattern, we crave the story. We draw the flame from the roots of our bones and blood. We offer up names, we claim the numbers, never knowing we are only ever making wishes on long gone stars. Never knowing when our sky must fall.