system

Sunlight spills through the shrubs and pines like a circus spotlight waiting for a clown. The birds chirr and whistle as the flies work on their equations, lit like chitinous angels, silvery apparitions circling and racing across the derelict day. Squirrels loiter and leap, through the trees and off the fence, foraging beneath the feeders and gnawing on the beams. The neighbors’ children scream and scream. Another day in passing. Another day in place.

I’m on the back porch drinking coffee and listening to music, missing cannabis and tobacco like the only lovers I have left. The volume is up due to the yowling toddlers and my low tolerance for leaf blowers and their kin. I am as sad and as aching as ever, this heavy clutching my heart my lifelong normal. No one notices, or if they do, no one tells me about it, because no one tells me anything. I’m described as moody and difficult, and those are among the kindlier descriptors. Not pleasant for sure, but I learned long ago to listen to my critics, and, more importantly, to distrust any fan that comes along. People that hate me usually have a reason. People that praise me are typically up to no good. As you may have gathered it’s not a system built for personal comfort or emotional growth.

The sunlight dims and incandesces as stacked cumuli fill in the firmament. A couple gangs of sparrows have occupied the trees and power lines in the yard. They perch on the redwood fence as the bolder birds test the waters, setting the feeders all a sway. A mockingbird sings boldly above all the buzz and burble. It will still be singing after midnight. We all have our reasons. Love and plunder, beauty and fear, all the rot and dogma that runs us on the wheel. The world is beautiful and sad and ugly and full of nonsense. I am tired of most of it, and done with most of you. The beauty most of all feels like a beating, like— with all of this radiant stubborn splendor why am I still here? The ugly burden of being the note struck most by my dull beaten heart. Had I a gun, it would all be done.