love me not

The itch in the eye summons the knuckle before I really notice, before reading brain noticed body brain and said ‘ummm.’ So the left eye, the allergy afflicted one, got a good turn at playing mortar as I ground in more allergens and a healthy quotient of insect repellent. The right eye still isn’t getting it. I look around, the mortar side a bit squinty, and see my tangled yard of dust and weeds dancing a little dance with the busywork wind. The sun is bright and the yard is busy with the work of wasps. I suppose I could have done something. Knuckle or not I saw it coming.

Honestly, I’m trying to mind my business and bury my thinking in some ancient forest. I’d really rather not say. I’m just trying to dull the sharper edges of being, I’m just trying to lose myself in smoke and poems. The balance between this sad mewling thing and the fool’s dance only there if the words hit just so. My heart wants a direction, my bones want a home, the page wants to fly in tatters into the rampant wind. Too late to love or leave, too late for the forget-me-nots, gone like the Valentine flowers and bouquets of wishes. My itchy eye, the passing traffic, a mouthful of smoke and bitter. 

Believe me, I’m hard in the wishes were. Believe me, I’d pray if I had ever picked up the habit. But mostly I’m in the here and now, wearing out the words, holding down the fort. I circle while the world is burning. I hold the line while the minds come and go. Talking to myself because the dead don’t listen, they just keep on being their same old selves, only in the past tense. Talking to myself because the words want out. I do the day I’m dealt, and no one’s asking anyway. All the answers I’m ever getting, petals scattered everywhere.