inspiration

I can't wait around for inspiration. I don't sleep enough to count on dreams. So instead it is the steaming of the coffee maker, the stained lip of the unwashed cup. It is the dusk steeping through the blinds and the moths beating at the screen. It is wind-chimes and traffic sounds and the squeals of children free at least while summer break lasts. I haven't the time to court a muse, so I amuse my hands with the keyboard and the screen. The world is too large and I am too hollow-- what is left is the whims of the wind.

Outside the light is dimming. The single lamp lit does more to blind me than to reveal the room around. I swallow coffee and I sigh, a little too loud for simple breathing. The price is right and all the pieces fit, but the puzzle is all in the need for the figuring to match the picture. There is much in me that is wanting, and I am about all tooth and appetite, but my lack doesn't have much that will lessen it. I am that addict that finds sobriety from boredom with his addiction. There isn't a picture I crave more than these pieces, stirred and jumbled. There isn't an answer coming that is worth the asking.

Long ago I gave up on ghosts, though I use all manner of gods and monsters to fill in the gaps of all my porous explanations. They clasp me with their frozen fingers, I take a few to cool my drink. They wake me rattling their heavy chains, I sell the steel as scrap metal, pocketing any jingling as legal tender. I mingle with my usual retinue of strays and swarm beneath the typically cheap imagery of moon and stars. I stare up at the firmament through silhouette trees, humming some song almost nobody knows. Keeping company with refuse and other quaint relics, I file the ordinary report. Nothing much happened. I noticed it all.