The dog is barking and you’re sick in the dark, surrounded by the sounds of the wind and television, dying hard with every habit. Now the light by the mattress, now the meandering of the ash. For a moment smoke tattooed the space between the lamp and the ceiling, some slurred slogan, some mumbled oath. This the air, this the light, the sawed off end of the night.
The moment goes barefoot, the moment unpaved and woven around the flicker of unspoken intentions, the knock knock of the ubiquitous joke. We live or die by our plot points, by the chosen flag and the choosed up sides, stories thieved and spun and given a paint job and served up day after insidious day. The sky slick with tears and dreams, you stare and stare. This madness, this silence, the road hiding behind the horizon.
It’s too late for much getting better. It’s too late to save your soul. The stars you never see oblivious and obdurate as the cold seeps in and the rain rattles around. The dog is breathing in its dreams, head heavy on your knee, the cat curled against your ribs. You feel it in the ritual, in the weary unspooling of the feeble routines. So much more, you’re less and less. The dwindle in the spin, the certainty of the ending in the way of things, you pace the cage and make your mark. You hear it out there, drawing near.