From the swing;
the playground,
when the mind is clear
as honeyed water,
there,
ever on the road goes,
slithering into the shadows
of the sleeping horizon,
and
when my feet
were big enough to fill
the muddied shoes,
I sauntered,
then walked,
then trudged,
until my toes were nailed
to the asphalt,
until I came upon
where the road has crumbled,
its debris scattered.

And stood this body,
two sizes too big for this tiny soul,
swathed in layers of expectations,
dragging sagging lumps of age around
past this old carnival.

Forsaken years in the rear view mirror
once painted with life,
proud stallions
here, stand still and gray,
golden poles tarnished,
Their hand crafted eyes
wide-open,
staring through the smudged glass mirror at the lives they missed.  
while the music box wheezes—
a slowing tune,
a dying sound,
as shadows lengthen
on this fairground.

Deep in my pocket,
my fingers exhume
yesterday’s cold corpses
no longer jingling,
just grating tired,
clutched a handful of
these tokens—forgotten currencies,
now just pieces of obol for the eyes,
obsolete,
for games whose booths have long since shattered.

The Ferris wheel creaks,
half-dismantled,
Its empty seats
Swinging
in the twilight’s breeze,
crying tears
of rusted nuts and bolts,
groans high above my head,  
emitting light
a weaker pulse
against the night.  
As if they were embers
holding on to their glow,
if for a moment until the breeze snatches their soul out of their ashy bed.

I stand beneath it,
feel the wind brush past  
And wonder if I’ll ever climb again,  
or if this ride has ended with the spark  
of something breaking,
and like with most
it is something I can’t fix.