lesser than

The medicine almost doesn’t show, between the steaming mug of k cup whispered nothing and the flower that hasn’t touched the bloom. The dirty steel and tepid water, the dreaming and the fecund flesh. Sharp shores behind the eyes as the tide takes its toll, the breath a labored bellows. Some more smoke, cobwebs and textured shadows, the sashay of the music and the somber of the song. She loves me, she loves me not, the answer so easy it spares a lot of petals. There isn’t an incident to remark upon. There isn’t a soul to pin to the wall. Small rooms, cluttered shelves, a closet full of empty selves. The windows all open and the lights left on.

Surrender your wrists to the clock on the wall, surrender your ash to the tray. The stars stir and stretch across the cracks you radiate through the firmament, the night another shape staring in. The action never waiting for the lights or the camera, bellies and boots on the ground. Fill your altar and devoutly aspirate, every votive burning the prayer to the dirt. Look to the earth, look to the sky. Feed the fire or take the flight. The call from the heart of the darkest night, your flesh and bones devoted to the last direction, the song comes on and your heart is bared to unseen witness. The ceaseless gaze and the hunger that always picks you first.

We follow the paths laid by those who passed before us, scorch marks on the ceiling, mismatched screws in the outlet covers. We run the old conduits, recover the forgotten sprinkler system through mishap and misadventure, rummage about in the rocks and bones strewn about these ruins. We retrace the map even when the map is off, nothing is ever taken back. Turning over the oldest stories in our dank basements and dusty attics, a sticker on the calendar, a table with a view. The night unfurled like the night before, a clatter of bus tubs and small talk, the train long and slow as it wails away. Through the locked gate, up the stairs that ascend into the dark. The lights are hit and miss, the lonesome is waiting by the door.