ghosts at the wheel

There are the ordinary airs, the sets of spirits, the confessions and endless ruminations. There are the switches and the lights, the keys and the locks, the doors and windows and endless combinations of the opened and the closed. Lists and lamentations, aches and pains and sad songs playing again and again. The words we exchange in reckless incantations. The words we save as if our secret souls depended upon them. There is nothing left remarkable enough to earn a remark.

I have no means and little magic, empty words and warrantless searching that aggregate in the still hours. I have no calling and little courage, nothing to summon in sorrow or dismay. These dull weapons and blunt urges. The poetry of strangers and the dead that I shrug off my shoulders despite the chill that is upon me. I play out each day, every side scratched and skipping. Most days there is nothing so bad that I cannot make it worse. Most days there is no-one but ghosts at the wheel.

Loose the dirge at the first sign of daylight. March slow and sway, playing sweet and sad. Step light and solemn, let fly any flag you favor. The world might still want you, hungry and alone. The world may still need you, its shroud stretched wide open, offering its gaunt embrace. The cold will settle upon some of us, lapping at what tiny flames flicker in the marrow. The cold will take some of us, gentle and without one merciful spark. Luck might hold out, and the monsters might forbear. Maybe you have a little longer. Maybe the world will give you a little more.