noiseless deep space vacuum sounds will stand in until i reply

shorter days means less gets done before night. some people never leave you really, but it's not nice when their bodies are so far away. okay one day, not okay the next. too much whiskey, too much wine. too much sleeping the wrong hours, too much saying things that say nothing.

if i could have anything i wanted, i don't know what i'd want. and when someone says, how do you want it to be? and all you can say is, not like this, you need to think harder. i don't know what is better, how is better, or even when if not now.

i saw two starfish and at least ten anemone at the beach today. one rotting corpse of a seal. two swans. kids ran around on the rocks and yelled, and i don't feel like my run around on the barefoot rocks yelling days are over yet. but no yells today. just petting the starfish, stroking the anemone, wondering why i'm here, what it means when i procrastinate, why people balk especially me, why do i balk? like a scared cow, lowing in the pasture as the moon comes up, not ready, always ready, always stiff legged, cowed here between cud chewing days and confusion nights, heavy-uddered mornings, big sky always.

lets all snuggle in the big bed with mother and dad, let's eke out fifteen more minute of evening television, let's break the rules enough that we know we are the powerful ones, we are the vital ones, we can't go too far because you're watching, we always want you to stand with your arms wide and jaws wide and eyes wide watching us go to far saying come back, come back, well done, come home, come home again, it's getting dark and you've gone so far, further than ever before, farthest. just want to shock and appeal and make you proud and scared always and then fold back in.

big empty cities, big empty skies, big empty mountains, big and empty and sucking away at the driest bones the big empty future ever saw, sucking hard to take first the marrow, then the skin, then the whole limb, pulling the whole body into the big lonely future, the scared future, sucking me hard just to not be alone.

not like this, not like this, not like this