in it

Dusk comes, but the dark came earlier. Night falls, but the bright blue sky hit first. I know where my feet are supposed to go, but still I miss my mark. I step dutifully to the simplest of chores, but I fail to meet my standard. The old ideation, blown brains and swinging husks, the heavy handed hyperbole of the de facto narcissist. The doom laden brow of the dimwit too frustrated to know where to drop the hammer. I sit, thick with this inconsolable sorrow, like I have so many nights and days. I sit, deep in the labyrinth without a Minotaur in sight, hollowed out from these decades of hard thoughts.

Doors keep closing, people leave and keep their distance, I keep cleaving away the possibilities. The broken habits and the strange compensations slow to a laden grind. The power is still on, but there’re more gaps in the magic than completed circuits. It’s an old saw, a quaint waltz in a bombed out dance hall, this tired banging of the drum. It’s even worse from this end of the words. You do what you know, and you take your licks. Each of us a one off, a candle among billions of other flickering flames. The self you can manage, the self you’re left to be. The light will find its way.

Last night I surfaced from a drowning dream, the fear upon me and death bearing down. I woke gasping, clinging desperately to the tether of living breath, bodily pleading for my life. The weight of this dolor heavy on my racing heart, bewildered tears at this being of no reprieve,  the mad gnashing at guts and bone awake and alone. It is an act of will and the epitome of this cowardice, arms folded tight around the empty, the next day the fustigation to be. As sure as the fall of the swallow or the phases of the moon, I take whatever is dished out like the played out punk I am. Kicking and screaming, scrawling words down these imaginary walls that won’t stop closing in, the distance trapped within.