It's safe in daylight, you know.

I drive through my crumbling suburbia
Over all of its bumps and cracks
And feel so small, yet so
Infinite.
Feeling loosely connected
To every signpost,
Every stray cat,
Every filled and vacant house.
Part of a chain that runs its course
Across the entirety of existence.
I am a spectator, an observer of
Humanity though, admittedly,
Not quick to a level conclusion of it.

Yes, days are safe. They are familiar.

But it's dusk where the malaise sets in,
A disturbance that unsettles the muscles
Under my skin
And has me toss and turn for hours on end.
It's night where I trip barefoot
Over every folly,
Every small tick in the course of my life
In a path strewn with broken glass.

It's where the realms between your sanity
And where your demons sleep
Grow the weakest,
Churning your head with static and poison
And constantly reminding you
How easy it is to find your own faults,
How difficult it is to say,
"I love myself."

I wonder most nights when this all started.

I wonder every night when it'll stop.

He never regained consciousness
In all the hours I sat there.
The only sounds were the monitors’ beeping
And his staccato gasps for air.

Each breathe more labored than the last
as feeble hope turned to despair.
His extremities felt so cold,
as I sat and murmured wordless prayer.

A good life, certainly, and full;
Honor and glory both were there
As that old soldier slipped away
and his last breath rejoined the air.

I have all these questions to ask her
but she flies away from the fence-line
and over the barns

I hear her calling in the early morning hours
but I get no answers
not to the questions my heart makes

and I feel the hot heavy breath
of the hunters
their foot treads sound ominous
on the forest floor

I have been caught too many times before
I have been folded up in heavy hands
until I couldn't even breathe
and I am reluctant to be lost again

I need that Muse-woman
to come back here
and tell me if I am really ready
to fly.