Now I am trying not to die in all ways–
least of all the body, although that too will die as the evening of my life winds down
into something like a crumbling epistle;
but to let my ambition die, as well as lethargy–for lethargy left to its devices spawns
ambition out of pure desperation to remain relevant and sane.
Of course, this is all a circle, a chasing of ones own tail, an evolutionary callas that roughens
with hunger and rot.
I browse amidst books to feel less lonely; I finger the page and feel the almost roughness
of the more expensive books, roughed and leveled for the serious reader, which I feel
I am not. Where are my notes in the margins, why does my hand and head not slowly cut through
the dust of stabbing sunlight in my office–because I read to end, not to endure.
Death it seems is nothing more than silence, an immense orgasmic release into nothing,
feeling the emptiness of head and heart just before expiring and being washed over by
the salt water of nothing, trailing up to your lips as you take your last breath, leaving a crust of
texture on the softest part of us to be kissed away by the relief of no expectation.
I am tired of its edicts and of its being the source of my actions–I must tackle it and hold it
and treat it as I want to treat fear: with indifference and a dimpled chuckle.
Mistaken or not, I endure and I proceed forward. I wait for a bit more clarity, even sometimes seeking
it out and taking long and lonely journeys in the sprinkling rain of my own nostalgia, paying the
price of admission, heading through the turnstiles, taking a deep breath of the great showmanship
of arrogance and uncertainty; after, I push my hands down deep in my pockets and navigate
against the lint and walk along the shining river of my hopes and aspirations and take
with me this idea of death as a ruby to be tossed skipping across the moonlight soul water that empties into a future I cannot predict.