this morning i resolve to believe that love (you know what kind i mean, don't get on me with friends & kids, that's not what i'm talking about & you know it) exists &/or that i haven't already had both my first & last. we'll see if this goes as badly as the wanting to believe in the ghosts of tiredness. because if i have had my first & last already it may as well not exist & therefore i can on with ... whatever it is one gets on with.
i might be just a tad fussy this morning.
when i was young, i called inspiration "muse" & pictured a feminine presence, gliding across the consciousness in a gown that flowed like quicksliver around her, as she brought me words, a line or two like seeds. i believed her benevelence long after she had shown herself to be a fickle bitch; i blamed myself & lavished upon her all i could give, the pretty notebooks & pens i'd buy or steal if i had to, which would be consumed during sleepless night after night, endless revisions in search of her purpose for me. and by & by there came a time i looked back at what had stretched into decades & saw myself foolish through most if not all of it & i let it go. fractionally i wondered what might have been, but on the whole, i was scattered & left in charge of my own purpose.
& so i settled, as did the dust here in this cavernous drafty warehouse here, cluttered with only the most worthless bullshit, anything worth anything had long been sold, stolen, or otherwise wasted. oh, and here's a huge pile of potential (hardly used, no reasonable offer refused).
& so i went about the business of hanging on. i managed. there were more failures than anything, more accidental successes than successful efforts, but somehow things got to humming along, tunelessly of course. numb, more or less, more was better. & then? out of nowhere? inspiraton. returned. unbidden. & my numbness subsided into tingling & i sat anticipating the words that would be given to me, ready to follow, ready to surrender & be led.
the air crackled as he walked in, flashing a greasy smile & smoothing his combover. any doubts were obliterated by the energy, the same familiar force, only intensified by an order of magnitude; my mind reeled with the possibilities. the smell of his pungent sweat punctuated the silence as he measured me with his eyes, shrugged, & offered one word, a question: "ready?"
i released a breath i had no idea i'd been holding & nodded solemnly, hoping i looked the part. he held his hands out, palms up, opened his eyes to mine & waited wordlessly until he saw the understanding dawn on me, & by dawn i mean it spun my world hard around me & then tossed me on my ass on the cold floor. the truth? the truth?
he was gone before i had the chance to thank him.
