matt pond PA

November 9, 2017

One Letter Apart.

One letter apart. One swift autocorrect away from the complete, opposite meaning. This struggle (straggle) to get the word to conform to its intended spelling. (Twice, the machine minds behind the screen pushed me to write “spilling”.)

Run and ruin. Speed and adrenalized rushing blood will not give in to a state of societal devastation.

Copse and corpse. The thriving thicket versus our lifeless body. (Despite my adolescent darknesses, I choose the trees.)

Scent and scant. A nose filled with freshly cut grass, the nostrils flare at rancid trash. Or the absence and emptiness of a trace (grace) that’s worse than nothing. A tease of knowledge and nothing.

Food and fold. To eat in the washroom or to crumple under the sink (sank).

Better and bitter. Warmth squares up against cold in a late-night alley. How can I be better when I am often bitter? How can I convince myself of (off) the beauty in humanity when we are trying to secretly outdo everyone around us? Selflessness has to make a comeback soon. Art for the sake of art has to be resurrected. We cannot trade souls for screens, we cannot give up on the trite, worn-out, ugly sweater that is love. (Like and lack don’t conveniently line up for my new-age punchline.)

Free and flee. These words are both the same and totally different. Freedom allows one to flee. Fleeing creates freedom. But I run the same loops around town to keep my mind, stable. I flee to stay in the same place, to give my mind the ability to wander. The abandoned gas station resembling a cheap Stonehenge, the deer assembled in the gullies along Hillside Terrace, the speed trap on Lucas Avenue, twin Stewart’s Shoppes with the same bad, brown logo and tired design design, beckoning dog walkers, SUV’s, kids with stolen change trying to cop a cone of the sweetest ice cream.

In this sweaty, mindless state of motion, I’m perpetually a fingertip away from having everything and so far away from knowing anything real. Just a few letters shy of a completely different life.

*** There is more to explore here, these growing spell checks that lead us into our brave new world. Always more to find (fond), more to master (muster).

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