burnt

There are those of us disposed as smoke, those of us dispatched by an open window, those of us who come and go and remain unknown. They work the words around us, they pile on anthem, pledge, and prayer. They pass out names and epithets, brutal truths and empty threats. We bleed and suffer, we atone and we lament. We pitch in when the hat is passed, we carry their meanings and their suffer their points as we break and burn. All to be another unmarked grave, another empty overcoat, a digit among the numbers while our names remain unlearned.

It doesn’t matter when my eyes went out. I couldn’t tell you when the fire died. You think you’re the spark, you think you’re the flame, you think there’s something special about the fuel that’s you. It’s hard to keep the focus, it’s hard to hold the form. I’ve moved from gutter to ash heap. My tenses refuse to agree, and I let ‘em fight it out amongst themselves. There’s nothing left of me but a little smolder and a couple lights left on. We are ghosts walking through the partitions, carrying the unspoken parts of the conversation. The moon’s magic tossed upon the waves.

Our lives pass by unseen. Our voices ring out unheard. There’s a lot to see, there’s a lot to say. Dreams painted in avarice and lucre woven into gospel while humble wishes for simple needs are held as blasphemy, the common good disappeared in a turn of the cups. Bearing one inheritance, the capricious greedy few destroy most of it while using the hard parts to beat on the rest. They do not hear the chorus that carries on from before there were voices, they deny all that was written before words. We are the direction of the energy, the incidental disbursements of force and matter in opposition. The spark to the fuse, the burn to the bomb. A little heat and a little light into this vast expanse.