the hard days bring the dripping nights.  the throwaway nights.

the drinking times, when things feel gone.  good even.  when tumblers catch you

as you pour yourself away.

but in the morning you’re farther from yourself than when you started, and there’s no way back

to the mysticism of the night.

it’s a chasing-tail race, a declining spiral, and the going can’t get going fast enough

to chase down those last few feet in front of you.

the emptiness.  the nothing.  the promise of a dream, revealed.

the prescient sorrow of precipitous failure.

it’s the fading of lullabye memories, of fuzzy-faced loved ones locked up

in brain-cells of not forgotten, but not remembered.

all silhouettes and outlines.  shapes.  soft definition and fantasy.  nothing is real behind the

billowing calm of desperately opaque drapes.  just the anticipation of an idea.  the hope of a

dream.  the smoke-whisper of purpose.

but the campfire has gone cold, the moon has retreated,

and the night’s sinister streak is busying itself again turning shadows into false promises.