You: Shattered Like a Robin on the Street

The stars are in the ceiling; they sparkle when the lights go out. My life hasn't changed, but I feel like it should have. Tonight I'll go outside and watch the lights turn off in the houses across the lake behind my house. They'll dim out one by one until it's night and the only light to breath on will be the moon and my lamp. The crickets are out, mating, singing in the air with an annoying, droning voice. Every night they do this, it's their thing, their cycle, their life. Mine is mine to take and keep. It sits in my palm, legs folded, eyes closed, nostrils flaring slightly at each short and swift intake of air, and exhalation of breath.

We all repeat these steps, sitting here in our foggy homes. I'll drink ice water and let it crunch in my teeth. Maybe I'll see a swallow in the tree, cardinal in the glade, blue jay in the air blending into the sky. They'll all fall down one day and won't get up. When birds die, do they just fall from the sky? Do they die in mid-flight?

I'm not trying to sound so sad, I'm just wondering. Every thing's absurd. The light coming off the lake in rays of gold, against the black water as it dances in the wind. Rays of gold just buzzing around at my feet as I walk up to the edge of the water. One time some one asked what it all meant and the wind answered him back with a hollow breath.

Or maybe another person told him the answer. Maybe Buddha in nirvana, or the worm in the dirt. Dust and all. I don't understand it much anymore I suppose, but it didn't matter. I kept watching until my eyes saw nothing but dust in the air, swept up, straight into the sky. I had no words anymore, they fell out of my soul into some hole somewhere deep inside of me. I tried to speak, but there was nothing to say because it was all the same noise in different ways, forms, shapes. I didn't have any ideas; I won't lie, it was frightening. I was a stone sitting there sucking up the world, a mountain Bodhisattva. I'd sit here forever and watch this one place change in the wind. A bird in the air; it flew underneath some power lines, metal hooks hanging off from the wires. Perch up there and cocking their beaks.

One had gleaming eyes, fire in the street light surrounded by black. I was tired of seeing birds. Too small, too light, all free.

One time I walked by a storm drain and saw him in there, face down in grief and trying to act as if he still had anything in him. He was proud in the most annoying way, but I knew that he wasn't born in there. He fell in, in fact, he stepped in, knowingly. He might have lied to himself and told himself differently, maybe he saw something shiny at the end. His face construed with jealousy and an injured pride; that's the worst, isn't it? I supposed it wasn't worth it. If I didn't pity him so, I would have spit on him as I walked by, but what's a good shepherd to do?

Play rebound and suck it up? He'd get over it eventually anyway.

I was tired and I had nothing more; water in the sun just being soaked up by the sky. We spend our time rolling our tongues and thoughts on and on from one subject to the next without explanation; it comes out like a shattered vase made of rainbow dirt and grime, blood behind the background, spit, ash, dead skin cells in a mattress. I hope you understand. We've been pounding dirt into the ground, waving bones in the air like weapons, but who are we kidding? Does the sky shiver with fear at us? Or the ground, the water, the fire coming upon us from the dunes of the desert? No. It stands there staring, waiting forever, shifting slowly around us and we take no notice. Too busy busting each other in the ass, bashing each others heads, taking money from the hands of the poor and all. The truth is that I've settled down.

The truth is jaded and all; brittle but still somewhat smooth.