promised

It is all downhill from here, the gutter gathers it dues. Not the stars supposed from that poet's vantage, not the abyss warned of by some old-time biblehand. Just the ease of water finding out. Just the drift of layer upon layer of ash and shit and dust. Too early or too late-- I never remember which one or the other. It is only where I end up, drifting awake too long. It is the sigh of where all this dreaming starts.

There is no need to delve into each symbol. There isn't reason to go and find small secrets out. It isn't that all the mystery is spent, life all explained and laid out. It is only the limits we learn, never quite catching that break. We explain it all with our casts of thousands. We press into clay and bleed it black into dry reeds. Ghosts and dollars, and all those nested numbers. Gnats always in the air, no matter how tight the screening. Take it for granted that these words are all but spent. Take it for granted there is something more.

This is a sad frontier, where I have stumbled. The night is never dark or empty. Always a light on, ever the rattling pipes. Rain batters the windows, becomes a swift drift of hail. Sleep pouring down in sheets and stones. The frozen kiss of time undone. A little kindling, a little fire. I carry what I can, fumbling after a light.