too much

The crush of empty souls gets to be too much, with the sun so high and the world painted bright and blue. Enough with the murder ballads. Enough with the empty threats and private horrors stitched into the skin. Such needy teeth, grinning without a smile. Such foolish hands, reaching for the sharp and the permanent. Why bother with any counting at all?

My heart staggers about its tiny rooms, moving from shelf to shelf. My heart trips over its own shoe laces, never mind the stairs. Beating too fast, wandering the halls all night. Beaten too bad, lost in the mortuary medicine and the water-logged arts. The streets go still and the light runs down. Dust fills my veins, this dry earth losing traction. This still night losing any aim at all.

It's been worse, but not by much. It's been awhile, but not for long. I limp from chore to chore, an animal fed, a sentence served. The world just waiting to remind you. Life never lasting quite long enough to forget. The dusk busies itself with even odds and traffic lights. The night won't ask anything at all. I don't bother to believe. I only suspend my sense of what and where. I already know there are too many, never mind the numbers. I already know its trouble, never mind the knock. All the assembled mercies at each others throats, all the bed time monsters free to walk to streets. My feelings all a jumble, my failings all in a row.