CONFESSION ZERO

He has taken off his sandals. His feet seem new as he moves about. The sandals have been on for far too long. Walking in them seems pointless. Within one hundred yards a crowd has begun to grow from the moans of protest because something lives there. Something breathes the jarring dust of solitude and cries out without a throat, tongue lashed to pretense with all the trappings of hostilities’ offspring. O! He wishes to see the sun! Alone, unshackled, while wearing his own sandals, his own clothes, his own wish, his own sky! How long now has it been? Years… years alone. Loneliness is just a word, like worship or friendship or death. This man has a crowd of words, a horde of thoughts that are his, yet heavy with chains like some rabid beast. His voice now an echo unto himself. Unto himself. He has concluded his begging for freedom and is now ready to move along. He had things he wanted to give away. He had things he wanted to relinquish like rolling thunder. But...

We stand out in the cold for the fog of life to paint our silver breath on the thickened air, we cock our heads to watch it drift away, vanish really, to assure us that we’re living. We clasp our beating wrist with our fingers to hear life’s deep thrum holding rhythm, while the things of art and sky whirl and our hearts complete what our tongues cannot speak. We make no murmur as we enter into nightfall and have no pang as the birds return the sun, this is the world and we sway with her. O! Lean down with your tears of morning for our delight And when the lords of death thrust their blades, hold us near, and steady our lance that they might feel our resistance in the red corridors of dream! Keep the lords of death at bay until our child is ready! We stand out in the cold for the fog of life to paint our silver breath on thickened air, we cock our heads to watch it drift away, vanish really, to assure us of our living. We are tired of these charlatans of supervision with their...