I was watching the rising full moon
Searching for answers in the outline of a previous muse
I had something more clever to say
But I lost my words
Perhaps they lost me
I am no longer sure which way the connection circulates
It's as though my circuits have been buried in the foundations of stronger surfaces
The great withdrawal pulls down with the gravity of lesser descriptions
I swallow too deeply for the fact that my mouth is full of nothing but broken teeth
They will build up the scar tissue of a throat already insufficent
They will find their resting place
The fragments of a smile stuck within an organ that feels anything but vital
Is this digestion?
My mouth has become a wasteland and my body insists on impressing that upon others
Welcome to the Midwest
Welcome to guilt by association
I find envy in the zealots that steal Sundays from the sun
Not for the sake of some promised longevity, for I am not built for eternity
Hell, I can barely function enough to survive the idea of immediacy
I push down the plunger and bring life back to these bones
Chasing the remaining reminders of a heart attack that likely hasn't occurred
Or has yet to occur
Depending upon the time you find discernment within my vaguely specific observations
I chase my sight from a digital window to the wild which rises outside the security I could collapse if my recently destroyed passion was truly reborn in passion for destruction
I daydream of arson.
Because we both know if I burn this place to the ground at least it would provide some heat
The landlocked lovers dream of the sea, trading tides for the rise of windswept fields
Salt coats my outline as the winter infiltrates my mind
I am a road far too travelled, without a thought of the composites required to keep the vehicle in motion
I am a postcard decades removed
You find me in the boxes ignored 3 moves over
You pull my memory from the frames, beyond the stale scent of mildew and lost years
Children grew in those times, though my words speak nothing of their incongruence
We are running late for a party we've yet to uninvite ourselves from
I'm watching the bodies dancing within the curtains of a home I cannot claim
Like silhouettes
Like ghosts of a past I will always exist within, as will you.
We force ourselves out of such beautiful breathing patterns as we chase greener expanses
Though we appear to have forgotten that the tone of growth requires liquid saturation to produce the saturated hues we innately desire.
Why should we even be searching for well covered ground?
Wouldn't it be more admirable if we surrounded ourselves with space yet to grow?
To locate not only a space which longs for the progress we daydream of but one which supplies us the ability to produce, and perceive the beauty we are truly responsible for.
Too often we choose to find our repose within the boundaries birthed from the hands of others.
I have no desire to move from something I helped build into falsely absorbing and obsessing over the grounds I never placed a foot upon.
Of course this is not to say I don't understand the significance of other's beauty, or in that understanding that such beauty can erupt amid the same fields that sucked us dry all those humid nights we drowned ourselves in fluids but failed finding any tangible refreshment.
Fill the tables with inclusion
Forgetting that there's a fracture which I can pinpoint in any photo sent my way
Where induced inclusion begins to work in reverse.
We reach such resounding heights, overlooking the fact that one step beyond the peak is an introduction to descent.
We cannot stay on high
Though we must not allow peaks to define our beings
We must not allow, also, the reaction which results from involuntary depletion to do the same.
Digression leads one far from the means of memory
The peeling edges of a card peels back the days
Kitschy coins, coined inside jokes, inside an image I can now only experience in my head
Nicknames, and welcome signs I saw while the world slept in the passenger seat
All held within the sea stretched between the corners of an attraction we overlooked
Existence flips, as the northern wind pushes the summer down below the delineation of cancer.
It separates skin from roadside attractions pristine due to lack of elemental exposure
We see ourselves within these interjections of interstate travel
We are petrified without national recognition.
Fossils yet to truly expire.
Postcards folded into failing envelopes
Reminders of spaces I never shared
We turn over the page, to find a message more fitting with each passing pixel
"I wish I was there."
-Matthew 08/2022