nullify

The soundtrack is there to tell you how you feel about what you’re seeing. If you don’t listen, who knows who you were. Sometimes you hum along, as if the tune isn’t you. Sometimes you let the others do all the singing. Eventually it all costs the same. Mostly you pay in little pieces. Sometimes you pay it all up front. As the moment leaves, you are mementos and souvenirs. Little gewgaws and brittle slivers. Dwindling images and memories by rote.

This is why the story lets you down. This is how the singing gets you sore. All these self help holies and layaway heavens. The rounds there for the turn, not the take home test. Eternity is full of a lot of not you. You only go as far as what you carry. No one saves your place.

I sit and listen to the sound of sprinklers, the scent of treated water caught on the wind. The room fraught with dust and scattered mammals. The porch light washing the night bleary and blind. The stir below just so much wan moonlight and cutout stars. Now just words spilling away from the turning. Now just the erasure left in the tense.