unmatched

The night again, and the gutters crawl with whistles wetted and the leaping of loose light. The porch again, the light pushing softly off the wall, bejeweled with shed carapace and enmeshed beneath the covetous web. The smoke again, a rasp across the tongue then the curl in slow ascent. The steel cup, from black bitter mirror to blown steam to quaffed dose, a leaning in and a lifting to the lips. To hold the bloom however fleeting until the coming thunder blisters it from your grasp. To hold the night, line by line, as it sheds its vestments to the wind. The fixture between bricks, the travelings amongst the flesh.

I am the light of the last fading embers. I am the passage in the depths. The days come crashing down, washing away the works of poorly composed notions, torn to pieces by poorly trained moods. I find some beast and navigate it back to life, vaguely holding back my murderous pack. I find some demon, wings thrashing like a trapped bird, walk it out a window or a door. I ignore the orders, I observe the proprieties. You take the heat when others can’t. You help when you’re asked. There’s the words I toss around, then there’s the fustigation of the forms. It’s a busy road, it never hurts to keep it moving along.

It’s the sprawl of lights from passing traffic. It’s the stir in the bramble from the beats of cats. The rumble of engines, the stars holding course. The hunger always sounding alarms and making maps, the passage of the atmosphere and the animal, the discourse of the intention and the dealt hand. The once I was a labyrinth with the walls blown down, the now I am somewhere between reluctant Minotaur and untethered sacrificial goat. A lot depends on the relics and the lore. A lot depends on how well you loot the ladder and the armory. The heavy flame, the hidden star. The light that finds a way.