The uncageable bird no longer flies free,
chains of ‘real life’ crossing across her
broad tail-feathers and beautiful wings.
The world heard her roar,
or enough people to make it a shared
beautiful
and otherworldly case of loving and losing,
but never thinking about the losing for long.
I still don’t know what love means –
the thoughts dance on my sweating, red face –
and I’m not sure I ever will.
Time flies –
a bird freed and straight and endless –
whether you’re having fun
or not.
Less are made each year,
but I'm still making
young mistakes.
The fires of passion burn me
just as they ignite my life
and I am left as charred remains,
no phoenix rising.
Pretty new hair molded
into what has been fashionable
but is never guaranteed to remain so
a symptom to an illness known as modernity.
The words are slow and heavy now,
caked on mud and dried out dirt,
reminding me of the pain of failures
and times when words shot like lightning
torching our midnight skies
and stinging maladjusted eyes.
At first we shone as the birth of fire
to the primitive women and men,
now dimished to flourescent lights
to the weary school boys and girls.
What once was intense wonder,
now a history of young mistakes;
such a fascinating bed to lie in.
Concrete, endless concrete,
white and complacent
no provocation coming.
An idea slowly suffocates,
followed by the death of millions
like dissatisfying sex.
The fear set in as it always did
A slow, trodding march of remembered feelings
and ghosts of the past.
What was left here waiting for me,
and what was worth wanting?
I had spent the weeks inhaling you and
I was beginning to forget where I began
and ended,
and was that not what we all wanted?
We took turns melting pieces of ourselves,
bones and souls,
until we were more than before.
Emergence came and so did we,
we were delivered
and awake
and new.
The fear arrived just long enough to be
swallowed by the love.
My body ain’t a cage
Or an imprisoning container.
The soul flies as will allows,
And any freedom sacrificed is
A personal failure and responsibility.
Is there more freedom worth wanting?
No.
The universe,
A river.
A memory being recalled
Over and
Over again.
The details are built
With a common likeness
An inescapable sameness
That all these ugly words won’t capture.
The lust is new again
Until it gets old,
A familiar, ticking timebomb of boredom.
It waits,
As only boredom can.
I remember the enemy,
Even though its been many months.
There was no counting sheep
Or melatonin solution strong enough
To push aside this demon.
I had forgotten the late nights packed full of
Nothing.
The return felt like a well-worn glove,
Warm, and snug as it stretched onto smooth hands,
Never worse for wear despite missing sleep.
How did I best you before and
How can I defeat you now?
Time tells all stories,
Even when it slows to its post-midnight crawl.
Wide-eyed and finished I
Await another long dawn.
I could never say it to you,
not yet,
despite how much I've
been thinking about it.
I just don't know how to say it,
how to express it in general.
Time does not exist with these thoughts,
they are so heavy they've pulled time down,
not just a helpful anchor to keep it stable,
rather a rope creating an eye for the storm,
which has now ended stability entirely.
It was the night that forced me to write. I had to write, or there would be nothing after.
There is a weight, an entity, an anchor, pulling part of my soul down.
Every night without words causes the tumour to sink deeper, and corrupt more.
Is this an escape, a temporary reprieve or just a useless feel-good exercise.
Is something that makes you feel good a useless exercise?
Insignificant musing.
The wind whistles into, and out of, the decrepit apartment windows, begging for a proper entrance, or for total submission.
Brick, steel, and decades of existence don't bow down so easily.
Strange mechanical noises outside, first thought to be ladders on a parked trailer, and have now become whatever nightmare my sleep-deprived, horror-accustomed mind can imagine.
An all-consuming, fluorescent, white glow blocks everything in the room behind the screen.
The room is 81 per cent darkness.
What skeletons can dance in so much darkness?
There are also ghosts, and they whisper memories best left forgotten. I feel them crawling up my legs in the dark, edging up to the white light, but never entering into view.
They wait to scream out, and startle me. I could only be so lucky.
Forever they remain nameless. Forever they smile outside my vision.
Forever they know everything I do not.
You didn't notice. Sleep is your natural state. Envy fills me, as dreams are my favourite place. The only place that makes sense to me. The only place where existence is fair.
Fairness is subjective, like justice, but I trust my shadow's judgement enough to lose myself there.
Those are the lucky moments. It is more common to not remember my journeys there, and maybe that is for the best.
Imagine waking up from paradise every day, and coming back here.
Perpetual disappointment.
The radiator clicks.
I couldn't buy sleep tonight, not in a bottle of pills, a bottle of whiskey, or a bottle of self-loathing.
I guess that's why they call it the blues.
Written February 21
Andy Veilleux 