eighth
How do you know when you’ve reached the bottom? That point on the curve when up is the only option.
The sun’s warmth soothes the skin, but fails to reach the soul.
The chattering goes on, but it’s almost too subtle to hear.
Synapses fire.
The words don’t linger, but pass like a pain, the intensity of which is difficult to accurately recall. Like hearing a random note from a piece of music and trying to imagine the whole. Disconnected thoughts and movements. Echoes of existence. A random charade.
It won’t be long now.
It can’t be long now.
There’s talk of a visit from the old man’s friend. There won’t be much for him to take. Just a sack full of dried up old twigs tied up with a cough.
Someone wise, somewhere pleasant decides that you have no say in what gets done to you. No choice. Nowhere to hide. When all you want to do is disappear.
The ticket’s been bought, but the train is late. The driver’s intercom stopped working hours ago and the station master’s on his lunch. Dying for a pee and the loo is locked. Feet shuffle, gaze trips off down the platform, searching. That always seems to happen when you’re in a rush.
Eyes cracked in a drunkard’s wink, clouded by the waning light. Head too heavy it can only loll. Jaw frozen in a final yawn.
One by one the lights in the town flicker off. The people, weary from their day, head to their eternal sleep. Soon, it is only the insomniacs and troubled souls that lie awake. Pacing. Pulse racing. Milky skinned, they count the clammy seconds until the dying of the light.
There is only one thing in life that you have to do. It’s just the timing that’s off. There is nothing as certain in life as it’s uncertain.
Hanging on to existence by your cigarettes. The last movements being the stain of the phantom fag. A distillation of addiction. Habit is comfort or at least a memory of it. You are inevitably enjoying an undeserved puff, wherever you are, surrounded by snapshots of a wasted life, scattered on the ashen floor.
And off you go.
Quiet. Inch by inch you slip to the next. No tear-stained bottle rockets, no fanfares. Nothing to fear here.
Close? We were not. He was not close with anyone. However , I feel the loss.
Is that because it is the end of an era? Perhaps I see my own flaws in you and realize that we are all far from perfect and are too quick to judge others by our own standards. Maybe just the glimpse of raw existence at its closing and being fully aware for the first time, that we actually don’t live forever.
There has been no blue. Only the appropriate , heavy, damp gloom that hangs ominously low, just out of reach. Steady after the storm lashed days and dustbowl nights. Ragged, ripped emotions sit dazed and gaze through heavy-lidded eyes. Waiting.
Weighing.
Waning under the fluorescent hum and drip, drip, drip of clotted gutters. The doorbell sticks through over-use. Cakes crafted by traditional, tearful townsfolk build small walls of sweet, lemon-drizzled, cream-coated sustenance. Fighting for sensual attention with plastic wrapped flowers and pastel sympathy.
The bananas in the basket go brown.
Born free drags me easily but unwillingly back towards silently mouthed, pyjama clad words. The essence of a smile. Forgotten.
Dark shapes race across the quiet valley. Seductive cloud-shadows impatiently flow in an ever-changing dance, tempting me to follow. I raise up mine eyes and see.
Pure.
Trees leaning and shivering exitedly on battleship skies. Then lying hide-and-seek still, grave-quiet, movement unseen.
The criss-cross lined land is less than. The lower I look, the worse it is. Little red feet tic-tac on a pecking march. Why not fly?
I fail to follow.
The sky safely spreads and welcomes my eyes return with single stillness. The feet invade my echoing confusion again. Stop-startingly red.
Why not fly?
Rise and circle the dismal drip of two-ton towns like a crumb-crazed dive bomber. Go north and distance yourself from this distortion. It might take effort to make it there but it will be energy well spent.
Just sit there a while and enjoy the carpet of humanity weaved from tiny lives.
The sun’s warmth soothes the skin, but fails to reach the soul.
The chattering goes on, but it’s almost too subtle to hear.
Synapses fire.
The words don’t linger, but pass like a pain, the intensity of which is difficult to accurately recall. Like hearing a random note from a piece of music and trying to imagine the whole. Disconnected thoughts and movements. Echoes of existence. A random charade.
It won’t be long now.
It can’t be long now.
There’s talk of a visit from the old man’s friend. There won’t be much for him to take. Just a sack full of dried up old twigs tied up with a cough.
Someone wise, somewhere pleasant decides that you have no say in what gets done to you. No choice. Nowhere to hide. When all you want to do is disappear.
The ticket’s been bought, but the train is late. The driver’s intercom stopped working hours ago and the station master’s on his lunch. Dying for a pee and the loo is locked. Feet shuffle, gaze trips off down the platform, searching. That always seems to happen when you’re in a rush.
Eyes cracked in a drunkard’s wink, clouded by the waning light. Head too heavy it can only loll. Jaw frozen in a final yawn.
One by one the lights in the town flicker off. The people, weary from their day, head to their eternal sleep. Soon, it is only the insomniacs and troubled souls that lie awake. Pacing. Pulse racing. Milky skinned, they count the clammy seconds until the dying of the light.
There is only one thing in life that you have to do. It’s just the timing that’s off. There is nothing as certain in life as it’s uncertain.
Hanging on to existence by your cigarettes. The last movements being the stain of the phantom fag. A distillation of addiction. Habit is comfort or at least a memory of it. You are inevitably enjoying an undeserved puff, wherever you are, surrounded by snapshots of a wasted life, scattered on the ashen floor.
And off you go.
Quiet. Inch by inch you slip to the next. No tear-stained bottle rockets, no fanfares. Nothing to fear here.
Close? We were not. He was not close with anyone. However , I feel the loss.
Is that because it is the end of an era? Perhaps I see my own flaws in you and realize that we are all far from perfect and are too quick to judge others by our own standards. Maybe just the glimpse of raw existence at its closing and being fully aware for the first time, that we actually don’t live forever.
There has been no blue. Only the appropriate , heavy, damp gloom that hangs ominously low, just out of reach. Steady after the storm lashed days and dustbowl nights. Ragged, ripped emotions sit dazed and gaze through heavy-lidded eyes. Waiting.
Weighing.
Waning under the fluorescent hum and drip, drip, drip of clotted gutters. The doorbell sticks through over-use. Cakes crafted by traditional, tearful townsfolk build small walls of sweet, lemon-drizzled, cream-coated sustenance. Fighting for sensual attention with plastic wrapped flowers and pastel sympathy.
The bananas in the basket go brown.
Born free drags me easily but unwillingly back towards silently mouthed, pyjama clad words. The essence of a smile. Forgotten.
Dark shapes race across the quiet valley. Seductive cloud-shadows impatiently flow in an ever-changing dance, tempting me to follow. I raise up mine eyes and see.
Pure.
Trees leaning and shivering exitedly on battleship skies. Then lying hide-and-seek still, grave-quiet, movement unseen.
The criss-cross lined land is less than. The lower I look, the worse it is. Little red feet tic-tac on a pecking march. Why not fly?
I fail to follow.
The sky safely spreads and welcomes my eyes return with single stillness. The feet invade my echoing confusion again. Stop-startingly red.
Why not fly?
Rise and circle the dismal drip of two-ton towns like a crumb-crazed dive bomber. Go north and distance yourself from this distortion. It might take effort to make it there but it will be energy well spent.
Just sit there a while and enjoy the carpet of humanity weaved from tiny lives.
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