The days grow darker despite the bright blue skies and the warm heedless sun. One by one the fruits of labor show only rot and maggot, the long sought grace replaced with grim ideation, the makeshift gallows waiting in the garage. Fantasy serves little purpose when that’s where we all live, the poison of words sunk deep as bones, the lies we live puked up as platitude and credo. The cart overloaded, dragging the team backwards down the grade. Language the trick that seems to be enough to burn it all away, chattering like imbeciles as we gaily court oblivion. Afterlives and next worlds over. Saviors and suitors and all the ways hope is murdered on its tippy toes. Prayers and scripture while our lips blister and our lungs sear away. We shall see the light before it robs us of our sight and our selves.
The first of the last, the line grows long, tomorrow more untenable with each ugly day. No sleep too sweet to be interrupted, no task so valued as to remain unscathed. The heart complains, weak sister that it is. The strain of impossible furies and slabs of sorrow squeezing out what life is left, all the heroes and healers scattering in terror of the truth of their avocations. The affliction a rickety ladder, the cord a halo to fit around a troubled throat. The day to day routine only possible with the eyes looking down. Watch your step, each and every last stumbling one. Watch your six, because no one has your back. The mood mercury, with little left to mitigate it. The soul something that has earned a choking out.
The sun sets, drawing out all the ink and shadow, pulling the grays from every bandwidth. Dusk comes creeping, extinguishing most of the palette. The night to come waits, feeling its way around the wounds. The crow calls sharp, the brass swinging soft and low. Tongue bitter and head splitting, the empty ringing out, trailing tears and spent breath. Would that there was ever someone to talk to. Would that there was ever a place to go. A life only coveted when threatened, the enemy no bolder or braver than any friend or stranger. No distractions to derail the train that’s coming, no taste or tincture to dull the dread, night falls fast. All at once the ending all that’s left.