Joy

Don’t postpone joy. The turn of the page, the slow sojourn from day to day. Lulled into complacency, the days pass like silent assassins. Dripping down the side of the candle, it’s easy to lose the prospect of joy. Settle for average, for normal, for making do. The crash of minutes drowning out the clarion of purity.
Don’t postpone joy, for soon it will be too late, a bottle of pills, a harsh collision, a choking cough.  A thief of breath, time steals. It is sadness, the days behind me, no longer to be lived or loved or laughed, only lost. Did I measure them, when I was young? Or only see them stretching like the endless road in front. No need to hurry to my destination, it would always be there tomorrow and tomorrow.
A moment, linger here among the flowers, the hill too hard to climb today. Wait for tomorrow. But tomorrows and tomorrows they careen by, faster than before. I miss you, miss the words I didn’t value enough, the times, I didn’t answer. A drawing of a tree is not the leaves upon it, but the suggestion of a tree. A map of your wrinkled skin is not your life, but a suggestion of the roads you have traveled. Or the joys you have not lived. The dance you did not do, the words you did not say.  The help you did not ask for, only the footsteps fading from sound and sight, and searching.
Don’t postpone joy, for it cannot be lived again, or loved again, or laughed again. Fleet Mercury stole it from me, his winged shoes fluttered by so fast that you were gone before I knew it or felt it or thought it.
I take your words and stamp them upon my soul. Don’t postpone joy. Live in it.

Raining Cats and Dogs

Leaning against a window, the heat inside the bus creates a slightly humid, but welcome feeling as his soaked clothes slowly dry, along with those of the other passengers. The steamy glass, already hard to see through, reveals almost nothing of the streets outside. A blur of water cascades down the outside, and all he hears is the rumble of the engine, and the swish of tires on wet pavement. Fountains of white obscure the world outside the bus every few minutes, and he feels as though the world has ended, but nobody remembered to tell him. Street lights, glimmering orange in the dark, could be stars exploding and burning the atmosphere, for all he knows. He huddles closer, his damp clothes small comfort. And soon, the cocoon taking him onwards will be left, it’s small sanctuary replaced once more by the wind, and the water, and the cold.

Closeness

Closeness is a road, it can be short, or long, or anywhere in between. It can be a simple walk from you, to me. But instead it became a maze of ancient streets, following a logic based upon ideas and places long forgotten. All that remains is a street name, a word here or there that no longer holds meaning, only another dead end for me to be lost down, on my way to finding you. 

It’s hard to navigate, these streets of yours, the strata of your history turning my feet like broken cobblestones. I wish I could be an archaeologist - a broken pot telling me what you were, what you did and how you lived before I came upon you. I wish I could be a builder, construct my own path, wear away the virgin ground, create a channel of familiarity and sweetness, with no obstacles in my way, just a pleasant walk among the fields. But instead, my closeness to you is the asphalt of winter’s end. Cracked and broken, washed away by snow and flood, crumbling at every precarious step.

If I had a map of your streets, a guide to walk me through your territory, perhaps we would have a chance. But without one, I am lost. Is this the way to the highway of my friendship? Or the cul-de-sac of forgotten dreams? The avenue of love, is it that way? Or does it lead to the broken parking meter of time lost?