Another night spent lining my lungs for want of something better or worse to do. Remembering friction, remembering nights spent sparking smokes and staring drunk at the moon, looking to pick a fight. This night there are wisps in the sky with winds shifting them so I can’t decide whether my view is obstructed – whether I’m staring directly at the steel circle full-on or with impediment of future rain. I don’t care which it is, I’m busy thinking on the other side of Michigan, missing friends and mistresses, the families of fall and winter, the community thereof. I’m still in my staring match with the moon in a plea for it to tell me things I can’t think of myself. Cold nights, coats and comrades, brothers at arms and legs and minds. Sisters too, but fewer of them present in the alleys or the porches we torchers frequent, inhabit frequently to satisfy bad habits and good ones, keeping contact with the community of those pulling at pipes and Pall Malls because they’re cheap and we’re cheap too. Nights passed with a ceaseless and confused current through thresholds. Too much beer, too many smiles unmerited, dumbing ourselves down to engage in daunting discourse, drawing from the source of courage so many seek at our age. The watering hole’s dried up, so we didn’t drink water but liquor and beer, anything to quell the fear of social surrender. I’m not here for you but I don’t know that yet, so I’m trying revive the dying conversation though I lack the concentration to resuscitate this discussion on life support. It’s doomed to negligence, and so are you though as bipedal beasts go, you’re a looker; the minutes mind themselves, I’m too busy for time, I’m waiting for something to happen, trying to tip the momentum with whispers, smiles, grace.
Tomorrow I’m going to wake up hung over the edge of my bed to curse my head. I’m too tired to kick and scream so you just picture me putting up a fuss against pulling on my pants and slumping downstairs and we’ll call it even though we can see it’s odd that we do this to ourselves, that we spend so much time and expend such effort to effect ourselves in similar situations one night after one day after others. This is where the present costs too much. This is where we leave our heads and shoes. This is where I subject myself to symptom, when I lose bits of myself at all these thresholds we cross only to disentangle ourselves. The bed sheets are a ******* trap, a maze a labyrinth, and I don’t really wake up until I’m back asleep and by then it’s too much too early to make myself more human.
