consolation

The rain moved from rumor to roof, this gray tide of sky  arriving as the night. The trees all sway and the wind chimes sing. That life full of golden moments is here, without any resounding brass or fanfare. That life pieced together from books and movies, the lasting magic you won't let go shows up as well. All night you tried to sleep, weeping in your pillow. All night you tried to sleep, losing count of crimes and sheep.

I can't escape this dark escarpment, I can't contain these throws of dusk. The mask becomes a map of your evasions, the mask a looking glass you won't stop walking through. The stories you share with your tethered heart, a lightning strike or secret spark. All the brightness there and gone, at once illuminating and obscuring this bitter business. This tiresome telling that they call a soul. Every lapse another favor, every torment a tell. It might be hard to find heaven, but it doesn't take a tracker to stir up a little hell.

I wait out the day for the rain to get here, them I sit outside to watch it as it falls. Night arrives in festive grays and black shadows, the sort of shabby entrance I usually make. I sit and smoke, thinking the kinds of thoughts that you can skin your knees on. I sit and smoke, watching the rain wash it all. The streets grow slick and the gutters brazen. Wanted or not, this is the life I am living. Asked for or not, all my blessing count as curses. This moment, and others lived quite like it. This is the spell cast like dice in the dark. The consolation of words ringing hollow, every sin comes home to roost.