A declarative measure.

Alone in a busy coffeeshop, watching with a sense of dreadful interest as a fly perches on my arm, yearning to taste the stink of my sweat. Letting it all move past, forcing eyes to watch the world with whatever willful energy can be mustered. Those days…those days of ever-churning time. Days that are meant to pass on by.

Sometimes, those are all that you get.
Sometimes, those are all that you need.
Sometimes…

All things considered, regardless of what might be said or done in fits of trembling willpower, I remain in this world as a simple sort of man. Simple enough to drink his daily coffee with a smile on my face. I look out on the world I’ve built, and at the man that I’ve tried to become -- I look at the things I’ve done, the things that encompass me when I’m alone in the dark. For the most part, I can see them, and I can live on.

I can see the things that I’ve borrowed, and the things that I’ve lent.
In more ways than one, more types than none, a whole host of things that have seen their way to and from my hands in a manner that sends them up and out, back and forth, back and between reality and meaning and places where things are lost in pits of unquantifiable absurdity, where I can only turn my head round and round in some kind of vain effort to figure out where on Earth I’ve brought self to, after all of this time, after all of these people, after all of their things, after all of my things…well. Where does this go?
There are things to be said, and the night is burning into day.

Running out of moments to say what I sat down here to say. Which isn’t monumental, all things considered; if this remains unfinished, trapped within the walls of a wide-screened laptop with busted-ass hinges, you’ll go on with your lives as if nothing were wrong with your day to day. Everything passing on by, none of your time borrowed, none of my ramblings lent. Way of the World. Right?

Sometimes…

Things were borrowed, things were lent.
Trying to make connections through the use of communication through derivations of ideas caused by wood pulp and plastic and petroleum and sweat and fabric and laughter and chicken and sugar and memories and more ideas and dreams and kisses and breathes and wisdom and timetimetime; trying to, and sometimes, sometimes, sometimes succeeding. And sometimes, some things just end up missing.
Things loved, things lost. Some things more than others.

I can remember a book.
It was mine.

I’d earned it, once upon a time. That tale of ontological nausea, that had been tucked carefully into my bag that one day that I was to do something. With someone. I was to accomplish something. With someone else. Under a sky full of roaring clouds, I was to live my life. The book and I.

Such a day it was to be…
But encouraging Murphy can be a hell of a thing. Know what I mean?
I think you might.

Things happened. Things didn’t happen. Opportunities were lost, and as it was to be, they would never come around again. Money and time, art and life, food and drink, good times, good times -- gone. Drowned in the last great storm that this city has seen.

And there I stood, my book and I, making a journey through the heart of the gale. Stepping, and singing. Loud. Loud as I could, trying to out roar the crying walls of frigid water. The book and I.

When all was finally dry, the book didn’t look the same. The crispness of its pages seemed have been suddenly misplaced, with the all that was left behind being warped and stained, with words that bled around the edges. And just like that, it was a book that had lived. It was mine. And I had earned it.

I lent it to someone.
It was a good deal later -- I’d done a few things, spoken a few words, and she and I had found some memories in the midst of all the rest of our things. I thought, I knew, that she would, could, should read it. So I lent it to her. It wasn’t long after that she moved to Utah. The book and she.

Needless to say, I was a wee bit pissed the fuck off.
But you know what?

Things were borrowed, things were lent. She took that book, that book that had been mine -- she took it, and along the way, she read it. She devoured it. She stared at it, at its pages that had been so lovingly drenched into a sense of beautiful definition, until it began to wrap around her, the pages becoming the things which she was to know, the words becoming that which she was to comprehend. She lived with it, and she lived. She worried, and she suffered. She wondered, and she cared. The book, and she.
She made it hers.

It will never be coming back.
And I would never ask for it. Sometimes, such things work out that way.
Sometimes…

They don’t.
Sitting with days that pass on by. Watching them pass, watching them move. Carrying things with me, alongside my thoughts, alongside my sweat, alongside my plans. Carrying things that have somehow, drifted out of my slender fingers.
Meaningful things, if only to me.
Gone.
Gone.
Gone.

Things that were held close to me, that hold within them the dusty scent of a place that I might never see again, of a time that I wish to never have back, but still…that made me a certain kind of me, that drove me towards the type of man that I wanted to be. Something that helps me think.

Things that will never be said. That were never really had, that were never really there to be had. Things that will never be held in my hands, beating like a warm heart under spread-eagled fingers. Things that wouldn’t couldn’t…shouldn’t? Something that I will let be.

Things that burned. Hot as the forge, sharp as the steel.
“A sweet, soft grenade. The stillness of the night.” Something that is missed.

Sometimes, what you are left with is all that you get.
Sometimes, what you hang onto is all that you need.
Sometimes…Sometimes….no.

I sit here, shivering. A man who sometimes, sometimes, sometimes, has the good fortune to make a choice, to try and live, to try and move. Things were borrowed, things were lent. Loved and Lost. Here I am. Saying right here, right now:

I’m going to get them back.

I’m going to stretch out my arms -- and make no mistake, they are long arms -- and reach out towards the things that have gone away. Because after all, we have nothing to live with but the things that we’ve done.

So we try to make it right.