There is no time more bleak and promising than the break of dawn.
The eggshell sky beckons with a powdery blue which promises of nobler and greater things just beyond our ever reaching grasp.

Rain slaps the pavement,
Low thunder grumbles, hungering and thirsting for more,
For me.

Shrill bird calls
the homely call of the crow
speckle the air with a spirit of understanding
(and a building intensity)
that simply cannot be felt ever again.
At any other time.

And I light a cigarette.
And I light a cigarette
because just like that.
The Beauty is gone.

Because in the time that it takes to coat the innards of my lungs with just one more layer of sludge,
The Beauty is gone.

The soft blue is usurped by a dull grey,
--a great that could only dream of the powerful
sting of a steel blade.

And people come alive again.
And my heart is broken.
Again.
Again, again, and
Again with the pathetic whorish promise of what could be,
but has not been,
and possibly never will be.

And yet I still hope,
And yet I still yearn for the promise of the powdery blue.