The World I Live In Now

A rumination

This is the world I live in now. That wall out back is cracked and crumbling, the inexorable inevitable force of roots and rot seeping through the mortar. All things demand attention eventually, and for some it is too late. “It may be too late for me,” I told her. She just laughed. “You don’t get off that easily,” she said. That night I had two more drinks than usual, and stumbled on my way to bed. The long blank between night and morning has been replaced with fits and starts, things whispered in the dark, dreams sliding into the low aching sound of the house heaving and settling. Then sleep smothers me again, wrapped in silence, engulfed in thoughts of pointless, petty acts, cruel intentions, disappointments, rarely a too-fleeting moment of relief. We will travel to Paris this year, and perhaps out West the next. The world, the empire, the neighborhood – they are all going the way of that wall out back. We are running from the future, the indifferent suffering, the hollow songs.