My Lonesome Agenda

Though my weaknesses include numbers and laziness, I have kept myself busy calculating the evens and odds of this quandary. My arms are bruised by boxes, my poor ox bones, folding over each other into an inward hug. This cloven crush (it is so stubborn) keeps driving deeper and deeper into my chest. I make a stew out of the hundred things I have failed to do. Serve it in little sauce cups next to the steaming heap of excuses, freshly cooked up. Did you suppose yourself lucky to be with someone? It is as lucky to be still alone, when you have so many chances to get it right. Get it? This space between us, it's warm. Getting warmer. Step away from where the gestation takes place: it is too much for one person to come in contact with; it will sweep you into the creation. The parts of you that are borrowed, did you ever think they would make their way back to you? Has I will give them back ever quelled the misery of standing naked in the middle of the street, turning: east, north, south, west in search of the hands that tore the cloths from your body? I have been like that before, in lecture halls and between walls that I swear were closing in on me. Not naked of course, but sparse. I wrote small reminders on even smaller bits of paper: Get it. Today I wear a patch just above my left hipbone that pumps me full of lovely images throughout the day, curbing the hunger. My elders all warn me to stop smoking the burning bush, because they are deadpan serious He will have business again with us someday. Business sags— business booms— business it stays either way. This life is labor. Still I hunger. My frozen instincts have been wiggling their big toe. The vertebra that goes against the grain, like the lone bat who veered right while the colony flew left, calls out for a solution. Something living grazes behind the dilapidated barn of my back, and should it ever spark, there will be not one moon—but four. Get going, cries the sparks. Get busy, cries the business. My smile is taut. Got a light? Strangers and I weave parables, we make each other's day (though my days have all been made). I gestate their stories, chisel their name into the monument, and walk the opposite direction. In the mass, disparate cloud of voices, I hear the inklings of an answer. Get started on the grand invention before you find it's been invented already. Get lazy with your conversations, false with your kindness, or careless with your brain, and you'll find that you're not so different. Your face flushes for anything. Dear me, (I'm afraid) you're not all that you think you are. The only thing that matters now is that you are moving on your own two feet. Box this quandary up and stick it in the warmer for a while. Better to be forgotten than to go cold or bad (trust me). You've forgotten what it's like to be scraping the gutter for a chance at peace. In such a rush to repeat this track? You know the words (sing it yourself). The shadow across the moon when the sun starts to rise, that's where it's at. Not in this life, sparks. Not on my time, business. Standing in the middle of the street, I see all of the beautiful faces, perpetually turning away. A shot in the dark is not wasted if you aim for the dark. A drop in the bucket will fill the bucket eventually. Skipping stones may one day make a bridge.  Dear me, by now do you get it?