there was a man
who spoke soft like velvet exhales
and sold ivory by the glance;
he wore his heart on a sleeve
that he left rolled up,
to keep the wolves at peace.
he was a spiritual man
who held seances in his bones
so as to never forget
about the man he used to be,
before the years turned old
and fell from the calender like pine coffins
into their soiled homes.
he spent a lifetime collecting darkness
from the split seconds of blinking eyes
- he justified his actions as
borrowing the pennies
no one thought to ever find
- he was a wealthy man;
miserable like every one before him.
in the winter
he exhales onto sheets of glass
in the sky and begins
trying to tally his way to infinity before he falls asleep.
he never makes it.
there is always an ending
- always a point at which
we give up
all hope of forever
and give in to one second before the minute,
our days are only months inside a year
counting down to frailty
of all lives within it.
he fears death.
but is deathly afraid of living
up
to the gravity of the situation
and it's sum.
so he keeps collecting darkness
- stealing moments
of blackness from batting lashes
and timid sleepers: pennies
to build a door to infinity
right there
in the sky.
he keeps the pennies
in a box beside his bed
- so that when he falls short of tallying eternity
he wakes up to remember
every day is one day less
until there is only
more.
he sews square seconds of nighttime
into each other
until he has enough to hang above his bed.
he stares so deep
that he sees right through himself.
there is everything
and nothing at all at once
and all the time
a piece of forever
built on borrowed time.
he's becomes obsessed.
every second spent
is one waisted on a relative ending
to a frame of time
he wishes to leave behind-
but the night's run dry.
there are no more pennies
and he's gone bankrupt on time
- forever is so close
but the seconds without it
weigh heavy on his bones.
he begins to sob
he sits at the end of his bed
as his sorrow brings the sea
to its feet.
the waves swallow the shore;
they raise as hands from the ocean
and slam themselves together
to reach his attention
he looks down
as the ocean lifts her skirt
and he can see her as she is.
she sings to him
the siren's song free of charge
- she sees the beauty in his depression
and hums to the rhythm of his misery.
she raises her hands from the sea
and whispers
"death."
he smiles.
he begins collecting
nightshade from the ashes of the dead
and pitches the pennies
into the box along his nightstand
as if it were a wishing well.
but this isn't borrowing;
you cannot repay the dead.
forever came too late
and now their peace
is at place in a piece of art
they will never see
at the expense of eternal sleep.
they speak in echoes
faint and desperate
- the dead look to the sky
and stare directly into the sun.
they tell the sun stories
of forever night
-his face swells with hate
and the air begins to ripple
in it's place:
"nevernight, nevermore."
the sun sets out to steal every inch
of midnight from moon.
he waits until the moon
tiptoes into the backside of his forehead
and finds sleep behind the dream
of infinity
- and the sun creeps into the room.
he runs to the box of pennies
but he is too bright to hide in the midnight
painted room
the moon raises from his bed
and eclipses the sun;
they lock eyes so long
the edges of the room blur
the sun sprints for the door
and trips along the trim
he spills every second of night
into the world
and as it shatters it catches his reflection
and replays
the night is scarred.
the moon weeps
as it stares into forever
and only sees shrapnel of the sun
- each and every star
marking time
where there should be none.
the sun slinks back into his room
and the moon to his;
midnight decorated in the reminder
that forever
is never going to come.