justwrite 27 april

when I meant what I said it was all I had left and them some they broke the bank when they paid you they drew in all the curtains and erased the windows there were purple crayons and other ideas but the freeze came and the voters abstained it’s not that they didn’t like the choices it’s not that they had minds full of options they were open for adoption and closed for consideration they had space heaters but no space they arranged the letters of their names in alphabetical order to maximize efficiency and so became a nation without initials all the howls of the vowels and the consonantal confusion the illusion of making up a word and then finding that it exists the idea of dying with wax and realizing it resists the colors the numbers the bugs that suddenly appear when green does the screens in the windows that glow full of holes that grow and turn old at the touch of rust at the must-have must-hold story times with golden rhymes tucked in at the corners to hold off all the mourners we have had our successes and we will rest not on our laurels but with our best intentions with the remaining declensions unkindly finished we have diminished our appetites for such trite bits of wit and also of folly we have hollered into the woods we could not tell each other apart but now with bits of broken hearts the edges can be traced the space has now replaced the absence there are gaps without caps to reflection no sort of warning for such a phase dawning an alarm bell or something might be useful might be grinning toothful and loathsome with its self-satisfying sickness a cold hold on an ordinary hand a shake that takes longer to release than might be expected a cavity neglected that doesn’t quite improve just gets disused not discussed just unfussed over and glossed and the floss isn’t even worth the metaphor it’ll take to string along it’s a song that doesn’t need to be sung but it’s easy to hum and it comes up again when you’d rather turn away flip a switch and seek a different itch to scratch catching on and releasing as feasible