Not Allowed to Be

Life gave me a hand but I haven't learned how to deal. So I sit here trying to figure it out, and I walk around the house in my mind, leaving to previous tenses and hypothetical scenes where I do something that I later take back. The steps lead me through the lino-lined corridor out of my room into the dining, then left to the lounge, where I look outside through the window and the white fabric curtains to the orange and red leaves still icicled on thin branches, and cars pass underneath, from onewhere to twowhere, and then I walk back the same way, catch a glimpse of a body moving closer in the mirror and then turning right down the corridor and into my room again. That is the pacing routine I carry on whenever I am at home alone and am thinking about something.

This morning I woke up with a sense of happiness that I see as a shadow in the light of the day. It begged me to think about how there are these contours drawn that slip behind and follow me. I look at the silhouette often, its loyal scraping against the furniture and lino as I move, never leaving a trace, except to me, except to tell me that it's there.

{Life's too short to even care at all}
Just below the morning lies a table sleeping. Its edges are round, if a little rough, and appear to expand and contract like a breathing chest. A too-short life happens on this table, taking place and space by the throat in some sort of not-always-memorable violence. On this table this morning was sand, powdered thin but felt awhole, into a face, mine. And this face only knew its contours to be of cheek and jaw and nearear through the fingertips of two familiar hands, drawing them. Their contact;- the contact brought within me a great sense of safety and warmth, one I hesitate to attribute in daylight to anyone, but under the morning, know well to be someone's because I remember the minute texture by the shadow the memory casts upon the day man.

{A dark world aches for a splash of the sun}
Below one of several passed mornings, at the curvature of the night I felt the same so-familiar ache of warmth and affection. It was as physical as I can call of that sleeping table. It was an else of an embrace, just a holding. And when the morning came above, I felt the affection dissolve under the covers, reconstituting a shadow that would be unveiled as I pulled the sheets off me and walked out of my room, trailed by it.

Daylight, as it corners rooms now, as it covers even the undersides of couches and hinges, yearns to reveal shadows. And the shadow, when I look back, looks back at me, grave-silent, potential, delayed deeply, deeply deferred by distraction, owned by destruction. I can't imagine it white. Yes, I can imagine it, and the limboing teeter-tottering undulates with a desire of a freedom I cut and remains.

{I'm waiting for this cough syrup to come down}

I'm no longer sure if I was ever sure that I had Aces in my arteries, because I've always hesitated to play them.