"Restless. As if you haven't really met yourself yet. As if you'd passed yourself once in the fog, and your heart leapt - 'Ah! There I Am! I've been missing that piece!' But it happens too fast, and then that part of you disappears into the fog again. And you spend the rest of your days looking for it." – Libba Bray, The Sweet Far Thing

I.
We were never really afraid of emptiness
Only of void, the hollow
Which will never be filled anymore
As of an ember dying to ashes
As a photograph blurred by times
We fear only when we know
Tomorrow will never come
So when we can still see further
We abuse distance, we corrupt
Aloofness, we betray the intimacy
Of nature, we deny time of its place
It's occurrence, we unconsciously
Disrupt a timetable set to make ends
Bearable––

Not anymore

II.
Why do we even put only thirds
of coffee in our cup,
only to come back for more
In fear of content, overwhelming space?
Distance?
It is this fixation to this fear
that we fail to think of coffee running out

III.
We think in fragments
We fear the whole
Of the day being morning and afternoon
We hate the night for being night
The long stretches of hours
We could have slept,
because the darkness justifies rest
The day we could have played
because the sun justifies the break from monotony
Instead, we go in reverse

IV.
To counter fear is to think backwards
The other way––not really forward
We cheat.
We do not sleep simply because we might not awaken
We do not go out simply because we might only be ushered in
We do not try because we might fail
It is okay to sit right here
In the middle of space
Filled with comforting thoughts
That distance is a choice
from something
Not from nothing

But we will all wake up one day
From a restless night––
The sun is up, the light seeps through the window
Where the cup was lying empty on the table
This time, when we ask for the whole of it
The coffee have run out.

~
Imagine a box
In shadow
Of utter regalia
Iris, dressed as a waterfall
She comes scattered

Imagine an eyelid illusionist
Praying for more palettes
Enters steelbook cathedrals
To a ministry of colour

For the street outside
Cannot offer as
Interesting a hue
As those fascinating within
The pigment of her imagination

It's compelling artistry
Like oil on canvas
A slight of hand
Smoke and mirrors

Her skilled fingers
Kohl mining
For soft medley
And the new liminality
Above the spectator's eye
~

Dear Mrs. Timetable,

I'm writing you
From the bargain bin
Of a local bookstore,
Eating a peanut butter then jelly
Sandwich.
...
I must admit
It tastes pretty good.
...
How about we go out
For ice cream this evening?
...
We'll put on clothes,
And our best designer mask,
And head over to 31 flavors.
...
So long as it's chocolate, of course...