KYLE SLEDGE

Driven to distraction, caught in shouting streets
I wander southbound as my soles slide along this rain-soft cement
While star-crossed lovers paint portraits of indecipherable dissonance.
Promenading past the vacant faces, I find myself
Peeling away the layers that have been building for years,
pulling existence to pieces.

Street lights bounce between shop windows
As I reflect on moments of conduits and chamomile.
In live wire electrics and softly unceasing scents
I find nights to be no different than days.
Each are filled with my every regret.
Each are filled with my every belief.
Each are filled with my every lament.
Each are filled with my every relief.

Go ahead–try to sum up life with data-driven discourse.
(You can’t.)
Then tag everyone and tell them the news.
(You should.)
Bloggers, vloggers, pundits, partisans, PR pap peddlers
(You whores.)
Each and every one of us is going to die.
(You are.)
We all go alone from this world to another.
(You will.)

It’s all the same.
It’s a shell game.

Still steeped in sleep, I slowly pull back the shower curtain.
There’re no suds for cleansing, so I’ll stick with sweat instead.
Heat harnesses everything in the room,

masking the mirror with fog.

A red delicious rests on the soap rack from previous rushed efforts.
The skin’s been broken with bites covering its circumference.
A dark glaze forms over the worn flesh,

fading the light underneath.

Fruit flies float in a sporadic pattern, not knowing which way to go.
I try to give them guidance toward the goal at hand: sustenance.
Instead, their tiny little wings flitter away,

searching for succor elsewhere.

A sun to them I was
For only a moment
They lived as satellites.

Underneath the overpass
Where nature intersects with industry
The man-made stream’s water strides
Steadily forward without ceasing once
To ponder where it’s going
While cars above clop along the concrete
Their drivers’ minds fret idly for futures
So far in the distance they don’t exist

We’re all at some place within
The beginning and the end of it all
And no one knows for certain
How the great mystery will be resolved
Whether fire rains from the sky
Tsunamis swallow the entire species
Or a Savior swaddles our souls in death
Humanity was a gift from the start

I sit atop a limestone
As lilac blooms tinged with gasoline fumes
Tickle both of my nostrils
A mockingbird flies to its secret nest
Hidden somewhere in the trees
Sunlight rests in between the cool shadows
The illumination fades around me
Vultures spiral in circles, riding winds