the way it breaks you

It’s sorry about the news, sad about the horns, the song spinning thick as the scene pans around. It’s the trial and error, it’s the force of habit, go go dancers and the rabbit on the run. Sundown has hung around in the recursive strings and minor strains, the moon met night seeping in through every crack and keyhole. Hunger in the way you want it, beauty by the way it breaks you. A soul left hollow by a riddle. Footprints trailing straight into the tide. 

It is blood for the breath, blood for the bramble, the tangled shadows loom as I take the stars for a spin. Briar scratches and bug bit, I turn the slow table. Moon met halfway beneath the shrugged pines and early stars, I unwind these wants and whims. They fly like arrows loosed, bent on intent and wish. These unbidden directions, these wanton haunts that hook the heart. I close the circle and set to singing.

The night comes to small rooms in dimmed light and dust. It sits smoking, staring at a screen or window, at the cobwebs in the corners or the spider on the wall. It sits in grim rooms with the music ringing tinny from the phone. The alarm of the instant, the catch up touches of gray and the darkened weary eyes, the dull plod into the inevitable inferno the echoed dreams of the nevermore. The smoke always rising and the memories blur. The night and the thought of you and the empty bed again.