Before I knew it, I was consuming fermented grapes that had been smashed, then imprisoned in an oak barrel for nine months. I swallowed when they were free, I sighed and asked myself soberly about the banes of self-depreciation. Resolve, to abhor the very essence of visceral being. So much for that. Guts like sand on the beach of Normandy.

The full moon made me do it. My spirit howls.

My soul boils in the standing water left by a drip in the ceiling, resting in the dent of a million worn footsteps on a marble staircase. Footprints of my wet soles rest in the hallway of my discontent until.

The musty smell of moth balls in an old box hidden in a closet of the home my mother left when she was eighteen consumes my grief. I want so to feel her faith beyond the strength my father born me. If only I might grip onto the other half of my history, I may regain a smidgen of sanity in my world of shame. Oh shame, you top spiral making me dizzy in any hour of any day, wishing for force to stop. Stop the top and you end up not moving at the bottom. Any day above ground is a good one. Take the first spin, and put it last.

A thousand is a number. It seems like a lot now, but after a while, a thousand of ‘em it seems blasé ignorant thinking about numbers. One equals one and another adds up to one more. How high can you count?

Cadence has always been the rotations of the crank of my bicycle as I propel it over paved asphalt roadways, listening to the tires hum, buzzing away all the loneliness I wash dishes to. I got a radio station to provide background noise, but the inside sound is always louder. I sing to let it all out but I’m off key and no one listens to sad songs or hears them anyway. If you hear my song, listen.

I can’t ask for much of this world ‘cuz you get what you give and I don’t have much. If I had more, I’d probably keep it for myself anyway.

An old black cat sits above the overflowing dumpster waiting for an unsuspecting vole to meander into vice. When it crumbles too loud, the fed cat will pounce and play with it. The vole will remain later, dead on a side, with a short tail curled around. The cat will purr and meow for a warm bed and feet to sleep upon.

When I was a little boy during naptime at daycare, I would lay in my cot and watch the clock. I’d lie silently on the stretched weave nylon wondering if love would ever find me and if my mother knew. There on the canvas, awake and crying, watching the electric second hand make loops around the dial while never seeing the minute hand move. I waited like that for a long time watching something I could not comprehend.

I reside in the spaces in between. With substance on my sides, I am fulfilled when I am empty. When I stand on my own I can feel the wind wrap around and I remain exposed to the elements I fear. The owners manual for my body explains this phenomena as spirit recognizing fate. I look in the mirror every day.

The full moon hangs heavy in the sky.