Nightstands.
I really should’ve been a night watchman. I would’ve loved to have prevented some petty crimes. Paid to see the sun rise.
Wrestling with sleeplessness is a lifetime vocation. I’ve heard handfuls of lonely cars drive along the slick, dark streets. As trains howl in the distance and music runs wild around my head.
Songs grow in the valley between these worlds. Bona fide boughs with plastic fruit. Fake forests with real roots.
Digging deep, the finite lines of a calendar can’t completely define this position in the universe. Age slows down on a mocking clock, an arbitrary number of dog years or tree rings.
The connection between the real and imagined comes to life through a hazy catalogue of memories, of spiritualism and legerdemain. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini carry on their disputes into a disputed afterworld.
There are accumulating ideas. There are reasons. The seasons are impossible to ignore. Coated and close, the clothing and the ultimate disrobing.
Weeks later, the concrete creation of a song I can’t remember will appear on a playlist. When all I was really looking for was the simple achievement of a proper, mouth-to-mouth conversation.
I should’ve been a night watchman. I mean, if I can trick myself so well, I’ve got to be able to fool someone else.