flicker

The cluttered room is lit from a single lamp, the bare bulb blindingly brilliant and still not enough, an oscillating fan rattling back and forth as it bandies the air about. Music trills and grumbles from my phone, lapsed atmospherics and worn out club anthems. Songs that mean nothing to me and little to anyone else, part of the dull accumulations of my dotage. An old man turning in circles as the stylus spirals down to the center. The flicker of screens and the night outside. 

So ends the day, at this place of cats and dogs and textured ceilings. So ends this day, at the business end of the beating. Taking up space, using up resources, just enough mustered to keep me stuck and impoverished. A gong, a bell, some growling Mongolian and the guttural sustain. Fireworks again and again, a panicked dog, and money to burn. Another long night of embodied despair with no respite. Bullets and bodies and evil in the air.

Some days are overtaken by irrational hope. Small blessings and magical thinking, the course of the sun and every iteration of heartbreak. The endless letdown of a world that affords no purchase, nothing to hang onto other than shards and fragments. No love, no work, no purpose other than the piss bucket scrubbing and the minding of the time. Given dross passed off as gelt, just so much garbage awaiting the bin. These notes to no one, discarded the moment they’re done.