White Lightning hummed “Waiting for the Sun” as Dave wandered on the road. The speed limit was fifty-five miles per hour; the speedometer flicked between forty-nine and fifty. Most of Dave headed home, but the rest of him wandered lost in that dark forest where the wind whispered “why?”, and Dave never felt he had an answer worth saying above his own whisper, here in the woods between tired and dead. Everything feels so selfish he thought in a sober analysis. I guess that’s because everything tends to be self-motivated, and I have no value for my motives. You’re right, Jim: this is the strangest life I’ve ever known.

The city crawled near midnight. Dave looked up at the purple sky and the reddish horizon; it was like God’s purple paint thinned near the edge of the canvas, and you saw what colors it was made of. The autumn night was bright with light pollution.

There are no stars anymore Dave noticed. We stole them, made them slaves of steel trapped in streetlights. We’ve polluted their homeland with smog and false light; now they can never return. And, here I am alive in this world. I am a part of it all. Everything humankind has made is shit.

There is one angel man can make: a child. Is that creation ours to claim? Children teach us what we forgot, what we once cherished, and what we now need. It’s like anything though; you have to be willing to look and listen. I wish an angel’d sing to me.

Dave laughed hard.

Just one at least he thought soberly. If it’s true that sometimes we hate what we can’t have, I think I might see only the worst parts of children soon. I’d be a different person with a son or daughter; that’s the person I want to be, a father. Not better, just different, yet a human still. That was a little lyrical... Maybe I’ll start writing poetry.

He hit a few red lights; these signals always broke the spell of pondering, especially on a road with such a high-speed limit. It ripped him out of the forest for a moment, but that always gave him the chance to walk back in with new clarity. The Saxon hero sallied forth into the dark woods, searching for a challenge against his mettle, an answer to his being. These woods between tired and dead were a fact of life, a place through which we all go either with bold hope or meek despair.

I’ve never realized it until now, but my whole life I’ve actively defined happiness as a distraction. I am at war with contentment; I swore recklessly it was the enemy because I do not understand it. I am at war with simplicity; there is a whole world to be thought of, and in my endeavor to grasp it all, I campaigned against holding only what I can. I am at odds with existence itself because I realize I’m flawed. But, to see flaw is to know perfection to some degree. There is goodness. There is purpose. I am just too dumb to see.

Perhaps, the only way to see where goodness lies is to journey through the darkness of life. I cannot just ‘know’ what is good; that’s a bit like buying a cake and saying I know how it was made.

I know more about how it was made if I go and do it myself, if I tire my wrist with whisking, if I dirty my fingers picking out eggshells because I suck at cracking eggs, and if I watch the icing melt because the cake was still too hot when I spread it on. I should pick up baking or cooking in general.

I should just do something for someone. That’s a good place to start. Maybe that’s my way on stage; maybe I won’t see that exit sign from the stage. I’m not the only person who’s said this. I wonder if it worked for anyone else.

“I think the only people who really enjoy theatre are the ones creating it,” said Dave. “I’ve never been to a show that I’ve actually enjoyed more than one I was in.”

“You enjoyed Dark of the Moon more than Phantom?” asked Elizabeth.

“Yeah; playing Preacher Haggler gave me headaches, but Andrew Lloyd Webber made my nose bleed.”

“Oh, come on! The seats weren’t that bad.”

“Tell that to the sherpa they sent with us.”

“You know sitting up high at an opera used to be reserved for rich people.”

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“That’s because rich people used to be stupid.”

“Don’t be hateful!”

Dave laughed in that way bitter people do when they ridicule something that has nothing to do with themselves. He confused cynicism with cleverness or wit, but Elizabeth wasn’t fooled and her sassy glare proved that. Unfortunately, she didn’t see it for what it really was. She didn’t know what he went through in a day, as he could only imagine and infer her journey of hours. No amount of talking really fixes that; there aren’t enough minutes for a day to be lived twice.

“I’m thinking I’ll pick up poetry,” said Dave.

“Cool! I’m happy for you,” said Elizabeth with genuine cheer. This didn’t mean anything to Dave. I don’t need affirmation; I need encouragement to keep going. He turned around and continued stirring the boiling pasta shells. It’s kind of enjoyable to watch the water boil. The people not watching their pots are really missing out.

Of course, I could have been doing something more productive like the dishes or sweeping the floor. But, I’ll draw some wisdom from this and we’ll call that productive; everything takes time. I didn’t just decide that the pot should boil water; I decided that I should fill a pot with water, turn on the eye, and hope for the water to boil while I stand here and tend to it. I am like a pot of water.

The living room, the dog, Dave, and Elizabeth; this night was the same but different between the gray walls and the chewing pup.

Dave stared at a blank page on his screen. From whence comes poetry? he thought, then immediately typed that up. It had taken half an hour, but he had some words now, and they made some semblance of verse. Thoughts on a page. Thoughts on a page.

He had something and nothing all at once; that’s sometimes how it goes with verses. He wasn’t too critical of it though: it’s not like it matters; no one reads poetry anymore. This mentality was as liberating as it could have been negative. I versify for no man but Dave. He hammered on the backspace.

“What are you writing about?” asked Elizabeth.

“Oh… just some poems.”

“Awwe! Are they for me?”

“Uh, yeah! Of course they’re for you.” Dave versifies for one woman, maybe.

“That’s so sweet! Let me take a look.”

“Absolutely,” said Dave without looking up from his work. “When I’m done.”

“Okay.”

There was some silence between Elizabeth scrolling on her phone and Dave staring at his words. He broke it with quiet tapping.

“Dad called again today,” she said.

“Oh yeah?” said Dave. There she goes, breaking my concentration again.

“Yeah… just wanted to see if we could do something this weekend. I told him I have work. I work every weekend.”

“Oh, okay.” What makes freeform poetry still poetry?

“He asked me why we always work on weekends. I told him that’s our schedule.”

I mean, what are the rules if there are no rules?

“He said maybe we’ll have lunch next Tuesday.”

“I hope he pulls through on that.” He always seems like his heart is trying to be in the right place. What prevents him from following through? Why can we mean so well yet make so little of it?

“He’s planning to fly the kids out after Christmas.”

“That’s good.” He can’t pay for that. It’s $1,000 for two tickets.

“I just wish I could see them for Thanksgiving.”

“Well, maybe we can fly out there and visit next year.” She budgets like her Dad. It’ll only happen because we have smaller expenses to keep track of.

“Yeah… I guess.”

I don’t know how to help. Should I hide money for the trip? He looked at his wife with empathy. Growing up seems to mean there’s someone for everyone that they don’t get to see on Christmas.

“Why don’t we just watch Frasier?” he said. He looked at her, his heart beating on the thought of her misery. He slammed his distraction shut for the moment so they could share one together.

Dave rapped and tapped away at the keyboard next to a sleeping wife. There was no steady cadence to his craft, just an up and down of thoughts and words, an up and down of pitters and patters under the glow of an old laptop. He wrote what came to him, what asked to be written:

Introducing the City - The City

There are no longer stars

Alive in the night,

The portents of God

Overthrown by industrial light.

Worship the assembly;

It is

Our birth, our new God.

Suckle at the factory’s nipple.

Remember the womb to which we return;

Hate it. Prepare to tear her to pieces.

Your mother never loved you,

She will not cry at your funeral;

Spend death beneath her concrete gates.

In the cities of cold and meaningless cinders

Live the decrepit and dying

Who used to remember

What the stars were like

Before we killed them.

Still, I watch her dance among them.

Ghosts of their former selves.

The people cannot come to pass the violence;

It consumes them while they recite monologues of peace.

It’s hidden under ‘soft, lamenting hands’

That play steward to cold, ‘happy’ eyes.

Once, they burned… now cinders.

I now see…

A city of eyes

I now see…

The happy eyes are lonely lies.

Torn and worn

The leather hands

Of the

People tell the truth,

But the mouth masks it in shrouds

Of false clouds of ruth;

It’s really all mechanical nonsense.