The Toll For Whom Dwells
I wipe the windows down because the fog rolls on this cooling air. These nights it gets down to the fifties so I clutch myself, wishing for the clock to still, until I must rise. I don’t like getting out of the bed early to shoo the cat away from chewing plastic until he’s fed; I shiver.
But it’s also when I get the coffee out, and coffee is warm and soon I’ll feel good when I have it, not for the caffeine, which barely raises anything these days, but its reminder of what constitutes something; and if it's not going to be coffee then it would be something more destructive even though I feel good about the lack of destruction lately; cured pork and all.
When you can find that god path, routine, something reminding you of a preceding same, maybe seven months and three days ago, that’s ascent. A person unbothered by a filling lane, braking. One who’s drawn to cell towers in the distance, winding high up in the mountain, while the journey’s climb fights itself over which is the toughest part; upon arrival, then, it’s nothing.
Response swells within, an afraid scream—always quieter than rage. Which makes me think, there’s a primal fear out there, the worst there is, I reckon nearly silent. It’s a type of fear where you know it’s the end. The slightest point of a drip that starts slow, and oozy, but then pulsing—not a painful feeling—but pounding rhythm. Something that cannot be inferred by anyone standing outside it, those who would say, ‘what is there to fear?’