the space above my ears.

Mortal World

Christmas Eve, the night the bed-frame broke from all the tossing and turning.

Here, a red thumbtack.

And then, the evening following the day marking exactly one month since that night;

There, the ghost of a thumbtack.

Or a mirage, perhaps, a machine that finds gold- whichever better fits the criteria of your religion.

You're counting down to a date that means something.

Currently, you're five days past the last prediction and five days from the newest one.

The real one, you say.

However, it's quite difficult to ignore the footprints the red thumbtack has left in these recent months.
The marks of its presence in the paper past.

The little holes in the numbers that never quite let you forget your last "miscalculation"

It's a boring story, so boring, and sad too.

These attempts to consciously forget every time you've been wrong.

I could lie, say I want you different...or exactly the same, depending on basically nothing.

The relativity is a full gradient.

The blackest black and the most blinding white.
I'm far from the grey area at all times, but lately I've been sitting in the dark and wondering what the light could feel like.

Alone, but free.

No longer feeding off this perpetual cycle of you not calling back and me not caring until someone else finds out about it.

It's a pride thing, that's what I say to myself.

And lying is so cold.

Cold like the lead pipe in an alleyway between the pizzeria and the antique shop, painted red.

Cigarette blood.

I've been taught to choose time over all else, but ice is a slow killer, unlike fire.

I don't have the luxury of a clear conscience.

In turn, there's not enough room in my head for some utopian delusion.

That is where we differ.