the spaces and the breaks

The hour leans into tomorrow, forgetting all its vows. Work spent as heat and steam bleed into the atmosphere, trailing the last inklings of soul. All of our letters turn to words, the words to writing, the paper to the message to the discarded page. We hold on to our glasses, sip our drinks meagerly, fearing we might never get another. From Sunday to Monday, the world resets and continues. I linger in the litter and the partitions, between the spaces and the breaks.

Just a moment on the porch, and a plague of strays descend upon me. Fat and ragged and insatiable they arrive, always in need of something else I do not have, some little measure more. The blank night stares at me without eyes, a lapse in judgement gathering in my wake. Sharp teeth gnawing each utterance, each yowl and meow articulated like an action figure, emphasized like the hard hearted opera of survival played out as anime. Those that culture shaped bind us to their curiosities and their appetites, permeating chemistry and biology with the fissile physics of soul. I feed and stroke the beasts of patent strangers, another particle in flux and sway.

I watch the gleaned and golden moments rupture and dissolve. I watch the party end and the revelers awake from every spell. The magic endures, though it might elude us. The night obscures the very actions for the motives it creates. Footsteps and stale smoke. The ache of stairs, the rare and burdened engine work of the stars. I take a deep breath and lean deep into the machinery. I cast the spell of lonesomeness, the spell of fog and whispers. The hour bends and I am broken, though working just the same.