The Rail
Fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from our favorite emerging writers
10/15/2021 1 Comment It's the Days, by John TustinIt’s not the myriad prisons
The walls that are everywhere The men of terror The women of no sympathy It’s not the calls unreturned Or the mirror spitting back at you Even the sparrows falling to their deaths On fallow ground Beaks broken upon the weeds and the dust How the music becomes nothing But memories of something With the decades listening It’s not the alcohol It’s not the job The search for work That grinds one down To paste It’s not the rituals Of eating, earning And losing With The piss dribbling At 4AM From a middle aged cock With a middle aged prostate It’s not even the vacancy of emotions Meeting the logjam of words That coagulate in the river Tepid with nonchalance Meaning nothing As we count shekels And lose them gambling On luck On love It’s not even the inevitability Of the death Of a star No It’s the endless days That become nights Of threadbare sanity That Decimate the soul Alone Whether solitary Or in a crowded room It’s just The days And how They keep Coming Toward us Alone As we draw our cards Waiting for the shreds of love Among the scrapple In the slaughter Waiting for love Waiting for the end As failures And killers of love Waiting for The death Of a star Scrambling For the shreds In the scrapple
1 Comment
Christie
10/15/2021 01:53:02 pm
So so beautiful! This experience feels so familiar to me.
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