The Dark

My eyes are wide open, staring at nothing. The shadows that moved in the darkness as a child are quiet now, and I feel so alone.  The earth is quiet and I can hear my breath, the only life in this still room.  The walls lean toward me and I scramble out of bed to escape them.

I run through the house, but my feet make no noise, as if the floor can swallow up my urgency.  I fight with the locks and leave the door swinging.  The house is a simple silhouette, reality flattened into the dimensions of the night.  

I run toward the street and I honestly don't know if my eyes are open or closed.  Branches that I can't see clutch at my face.  I trip over a curb and my knees hit cement.  I look to the sky for answers, and I get none.  The moon has closed his eyes at the moment I need him most.  The stars have become candles with no wax and I stare at the heavens that offer no hope. 

Tears run hot against my cheeks, proof that not all in this world is cold.  My throat aches as if it is too small to keep my sadness locked up.  I sob silently in the darkness.  Dust from the street burns my eyes.  I can literally feel my heart breaking.  I take a moment to hate this silent earthquake that destroys me from the inside out.

My hands clench into fists. Anger starts to glow warm in my hands, the only coals in the night.    I exhale and sparks float on my breath, dancing in the cold air.  When I look up to the sky again, my gaze shines like a beam to shatter the darkness.  I close my eyes and hug my arms around myself.  I can't be afraid of the dark when the light has always been inside me. 

The Daily Grind

All the panes are gray in this smoggy city where dirty rain knocks glasses with tears on weary faces.  The muck and grime of a long day's work slurps up our footprints, and when we look behind us, we see no progress. The shoulders that carry our debts and our burdens are tired, and the days are long where the sun hides behind cement walls. 

So, we drown our sorrows in fantasy, and we wash our souls with handfuls of quarters.  We spritz nature onto our wrists and watch life on a colored box.  We play games with air waves and pay space to send us watered-down reality. 

We hover together in crowded pubs and argue about the referee's whistle, all the while unaware that someone else is making our calls.  We run away for the weekend and think that a salty breeze, clean sheets, and continental breakfast make us free.  But our hearts are chained to that chair with wheels that sits ten stories above what we will ever achieve.  

Our breath is putrid with the lies we tell our children.  I can't listen. Not now. Tomorrow. I promise.  Those unheard words that long to fly from soft mouths today will cement lips tomorrow.  Instead of the golden stories of our little ones, we will meet a ghostly silence. Nothing burns quite so bright as innocence before it fades in the eyes of a breathing corpse.

So, let's paint our faces.  The war mask of the twenty-first century comes in bottles of youth.  Let's color on our health and plump our prowess with silicone.  Let's filter our image so we can't see what dying animals we are, chained to the grindstone of our choices.