Because the cost of a soul is the price of a moment.

Because time had no beginning, but ends at forever, hanging helpless from the corner of the sphere.

Because the light will still find your brain, hidden at dead dark midnight, tickle your eyelids, and dance in a place you don’t dare mention by name.

Because darker is biggest and most beautiful, and the light men stood as the last link in the chain, the whip in the right hand of god.

Because the blood on the meter is a narcotic brew of Pacific, Atlantic, and flaming Arctic waters, set ablaze by giants who lived in the age of wine.

Because the sound of a tree falling in an empty forest rings out once, but is heard in two ways.

Because the wind cries the song of the living.

Because the sun sets and the moon rises.

Because the river water is cool.

Because the cost of a moment is the price of a soul.

Because.

No one knows anything,
if everyone is anything like me.

Memories are riddles with solutions
drowned in lies we used to tell ourselves,
bobbing under and above the surface
of lies we tell ourselves now.

Still, there are things to say,
and I say them like everyone.

"No one knows anything,"
is not one of these things.
Why ruin a sun setting on water
while we struggle to bob along?

The darkness of drowning blankets
shared dreams with held hands.

Somehow the life guard's chair
stands a sturdy right angle in sand.
His paycheck arrives by mail.
He buys his girl a ring.

Tides are predicted, and research
arrives in ships that rarely sink.