on not

It progresses from the coffee to the cup, from the lip to the tongue, the steel to the sip. Something dressed in the rags of ritual drabbing up the pace. The rhythm of the instrument, the strumming of the lines. It’s the way we work our magic, down in creations dregs and wonders. It’s the way we want and wander, the way I lay my claim. From the edge of the intention to the saying of the name.

We go from shell to shell, from gear to hungry gear. The names and places all the same, just at different weights and rates. I rub my right palm over my scratchy skull stubble, a habit that feels like it’s something Tak Shimura is doing in a movie, a place where the words stitch the image to the ache. The cool clean water or the coffee sharp and dark, the way that I’d take it mostly on not, save sometimes the ghost in smoke or tongue. Something I’d have seen you sung, were I still among the witnessed. Something that goes on and on, turning over in the night.

I live out the path of the satellite, always falling towards the core. I live out the path of the mendicant breath by begging bowl breath. Lucky for the little I am given considering the awful that I am. The trouble with the restless reaching, the difficulty of working out of my depths. I play the songs and work the body. I burn slow, seam to cinder, fine print to the lithe periphery. I stare the ache dead in the eyes, knowing the gist is no. I open my stance and live out my demands.