factory town

Take what you need down from the shelf. Take what you want right off the vine. They only keep the count to hold it against you. They know your numbers because they think it makes their case. When it comes to self-destruction, it's mostly a factory town. Pour the coffee, note the bubble on the surface. Watch the sun set, see all the stars in the sky. Someone says something, someone else says "it matters." Nothing is wrong strung with enough words to qualify. Everything is connected, the sentence eventually says.

The night waits out the stoney moment, it lingers gravel gray and blue. The wan horizon pressed between imagination and observation, the measurable spectrum rife with dirt and leaf. The moon gets out too early, lingering on rooftops, hiding in the trees. It swells and tempers, poems and prayers all flying loose to meet it. The words wait out the usual temptations, dark eyes and languid hips. They wait for the changes in the atmosphere, for the markers hurled to earth. They slumber in the blood, waiting for the spirit to lead the way. Sweetness and sorrow, they take the sky in flocks and storms.

The darkness seeps in through the windows. The darkness walks right through the door. The moon is out, the stars are loose, the count goes on and on. Every word comes like a pulled tooth. Every word and the cylinder spins, each empty chamber another ragged breath. Trigger and hammer, an end to all the ever afters. Despite what they tell you, nobody beats the odds. Even the best of souls may go astray, and you are far from the front of the pack. Someone nods and someone speaks, the movie starts all over. The streets empty and the skies alight. There is no inscription, but every ending knows your name by heart. There is nothing written. You already signed it all away.