epitaph

There is the leaving of the flocks, the stunning glaze of that last light burning. There is the staggered traffic, wanton and intent. There is the radio static, every voice a little crisp around the edges. There is the drive and the distance, and hours lost filling in the empty space around someone else's life. There is that fleeting fire, some stranger lit from within. Steady is the gap, change is the flow.

Nothing comes of it. The work and the time and the lives that just get bruised and worn. The voices that rise through the midnight walls, that bitter distinction between here and there. The ebbing moon so soon descending, the calendar a blur in the air. Piled leaves and buried feathers. The letters never written to be lost. The words no-one wanted to say.

I stay the course where no-one wants me, need and fear winning the day. I endure the blunt, abide the sharp. I bear vitriol and abuse, waiting out the stupid brutal facts. The day that burns, the day that dwindles. I am a shadow cast on the skin of the moment. I am the smoke of a fire that has long since burnt to ash. I am words over words, the slip of the tongue. I am the weather that passes gently as you dream. I am the bruises left buried in your bones.