the calling

There is a light left on long into the night. There is a light that shines to show the way. A window lit, a candle flickering, some curl of heat and smoke casting shadows for you. A place swaddled in stars and life. A place awaiting your soul and hard luck. Somewhere that knows you as only home might. There is a light shining somewhere out there for you.

Somehow you have lost it. Somehow through the fleeting years and the endless nights the stitches have loosed your shadow. You travel without touching, you move without change. The articles you read bleed black words and blue smoke, every thought completed your life undone anew. The words you spat out coming back to kiss and bite. Somehow everything heals around you, the world a series of strays and cults.

What comfort is left, is left for you. What solace is there, awaits your arrival. Some levity given gravity by the way it lands. Some fool given the keys to the kingdom for the way he falls. The wounds that will not heal, the hunger that is left with only dust to soothe it. How the stones have suffered in silence, how the wind would steal each gift. The earth spins and heaven rises and falls. The prize was yours before you could even think to want it. The light was left on long before you were born.