We own the night streets.
Once the stores close,
we find ourselves staring down
the tenebrous highway, occupied by only streetlights
that fly by our peripherals like birds.

We haven't seen birds in awhile.
The only glimpse of sunlight you get is the day poking
through our blinds as we sleep.
The sound of children playing on the street-
is no longer a sound that brings lightness to the heart.
It pulls from our troubled sleep, and we simply smother our faces into the sheets that we need to be washed.

The smell of oil can easily be washed out of clothes,
but, it lingers on the skin, seeping into our being.
Our identity is slowly being crushed by work.
Dust collect on books, video games, CDs, instruments-
which sit not unforgotten but neglected.

There is never enough time for a meal.
We line our bellies with granola bars, frozen food and coffee-
yet, food surrounds us at work.
The smell permeates the air while
hands tremble and rolls of nausea make us weak.

Sometimes, a primal anger slips by,
an indignant anger that wonders how life could be so meaningless yet joyless?
Our ancestors sat in fields, contemplating clouds as they drifted across a great blue sky.
Outside windows, the evening sky speaks to us,
resonating more than a manager's words ever could.

To escape the constraints of a mundane life,
you slip into the tenebrous shadows of the night
which are only interrupted by intervals of streetlights,
washing the night street with an orange glow.
against the wide windows of houses, figures show,
you feel like the loneliest being alive.

Your shoes push against leaves, dusted with snow
and ripe with the smell of death - surprisingly sweet.
Coming upon a path, you ponder the beauty and danger
of the night-fallen forest, magnetically pulling you to go.
Your sight flees you, leaving the interjection of where all sounds meet:
the whisper of tree branches, murmurs of the Saskatchewan River.
While people are tucked away in their homes, deep in peaceful slumber,
You and the night have never been awake.

In the early morn,
I slip away from a dream,
to wake up teary-eyed and forlorn.
It’s a rocky start to my day:
remembering this life I lead, chock-full of sadness and decay.

The mirror thrusts a perturbing image at me:
A bloated white thing, its eyes adorned with tinted bags.
Day by day, my soul withers away - the hardest thing to see.
If only I could catch it, keep it from leaving,
alas,  the remaining fragments of humanity are fleeting.

In the dimness of the kitchen,
I hear my own heart groan,
its song so desperate that I can’t help but listen
to the songs of my own sadness.

The clock’s hand crawls around its face,
a cruel reminder of time,
Sometimes too fast, too slow, but always a waste.
But, I don’t move, opting to listen to the fridge,
its drone as montonous as this life of mine.  


Looking out the window,
I see a mother playing with her son who screams with glee,
and the trees drown the streets with colours of fall.
This apathy that fills me turns me ugly.
On my tongue, the bitterness of little white pill,
just so I don’t feel anything at all.