In mourning for the lives which no longer touch mine, and I no longer theirs. The transgressions I have made dribble backwards from my tongue and I am left to worry or to choose. The exhaustion of silence hangs vacant from the corners, I recede into the emptiness I cannot breathe. The women I see with their impressive wrinkles deepened into the skin, how I adore them in a way that is pregnant with grace — something I had been taught to hand over for the sake of the ascension of degradation. These are the ways we are changing, walking from summer into autumn, the parting light caught slimly between our teeth.
This day, the quiet panic of any day falling away from January, is spread across stale breakfast toast and steeped in bitter English tea. I do not want promises, I do not want happiness, I do not want to be led to the river. At my fingertips, a slow keyboard. At the tip of my memory, a screen.
Sunset becomes us, it sinks beneath the anxiety and melts away at the grinding of symphonic gears. Women. Machines. Soft lips and terrible steel beams, metal girders pressed against the heart… even still she beats. We do not mean to hold this much poison inside our bones but we mistake the cage for protection, rage for progress. How dulled this prismatic woman gazing out across a graying evening.
Does the cold in the winter moon sky beg or does she stoop a while to listen? Yellowed papers, red eclipse. Our time is thick though spilled across the kitchen floor. Behold, I press my hands upon the breast of the mess we’ve made. We are surprised at the weight of this despair. That we can be so heavy and remain unseen.
Allison Marie Conway 