My nights begin in drink
And end uncertainly
In the unburied voices of concern.
Truth comes naturally
And everything from then on
Is an honest struggle.
I know enough of bottomless bottles
To recognize the apologies leaking from my eyes.
Only a lapse in moderation
Could excuse those slurred words of intimacy.
Last night I wasn’t yours,
But this morning I am a wanton lady
With the cobwebbed hair of sleep.
We endure the empty ideologies,
Piled like laundry on floors with papers of importance.
And born with reassurances
Into the wreckage of old souls,
We live long enough to remember
The foolish goodbyes of sentimental lovers.
Nothing more than the rattling of caged voices
Could bring about salvation.
We are imperfect in dimension and time.
Roughly shuffling
Through the quiet patches
Of yellow.
Where in the center,
Green still clings
To the barbed elderly.
I am held aloft,
Rustling expectantly.
Waiting to join those
Who have scattered
At the quickened pace
Of passerbys.
I am a serious woman.
Held together with reassurances
And soft laughter.
I know of the suffering of silenced tantrums
And the dried eyes of afternoons.
I wait for distant voices
And heavy footfalls.
Where everything is as it should be
And I am small and unmoving.
I know more of nights than people;
Of those who speak in monologues and have nothing to say.
What I crave is a pregnant silence
And comfortable meetings on high-traffic corners.
For slow-moving strangers demand more of life’s simplicity
Than those well known for dramatic pauses and raised voices.
In rythm, the bottle upends
Each sip a journey to unwillingness.
Wide awake, I enter dreams
My thoughts an unlikely collection of plausibility.
I hear you everywhere I go
And know of a dozen ways to say nothing.
In the middle,
Where observations are more than anything reality could have to offer,
Hours pass in lazy anxiousness
And niceties become the intimate exchanges of adults.
The novelty of reform remains aloof among the roar of chatter
Where each stranger knows more than they ought.
So no names are given
And every lie is told.
I sought tomorrow.
Beyond the shadow of the mountains,
And the electric air of the prairie.
Further than the reflection of the sky in still lakes,
And the hum of cicadas on a heavy night.
…the place where light touches water first.
We live on the edge of circumstance.
Paralyzed by sleepless nights
Forgetting everything but the chill of morning.
Beneath our bones hide the affectations of strangers
Their outstretched hands buzzing with insistence.
Compassion burns hot
Each fire more feverish than the last.
We offer ourselves freely
Keeping white lies and false smiles like loose change in our pockets.
We know the unease of unsolicited eye contact
And empty-handed introductions
On late nights.
There was a time when the only white lies
Were the ones we told ourselves
After sleep had paid a visit.
Now we lay awake
Folding ourselves into the idle hours of Sunday afternoons.
I inhale the cast off stories of strangers,
And the wet air of unfamiliar summers.
From perches on borrowed benches,
I offer pained smiles to those who came before.
Armed with 20 ounces of desire,
And a carton of nostalgia.
