In a dark space, light fades among translucent beings.  My brain, seen clearly through a soft membrane has a glow.  I whip my fingers over the dusty keys of my keyboard like a stage coach driver whipping tired horses to move faster.  The filament of my thoughts begins to grow, and I panic because I know that light that isn’t captures fades in the blink of an eye.  Peopled Worlds fall out of my fingers, trickling light.  I capture the glow on dying paper or cast it into the fathomless waves of the internet.  I watch it drift away, while my fingers grow still.  I hope someone finds my light.

I pick up my book, light fills my eyes.  I commune with people I have never met.  Perhaps they are passed away.  I feel honored basking in the dim glow of the light they left behind.  There stories fill my darkness.  My mind is alive, drinking the sacred glow of human thought.  I smile, as the glow in my mind lives for but a moment in the endless darkness.

* * *

Copyright ©  2019 Zachary W. Gilbert

Knotted fingers made of gray smoke,

choke the sunlight from weary eyes.

The sun drowns behind mountains,

always falling when doomed sleepers wake.

Muscle turns to sand and spills,

onto a cold floor, kissed by the night air.

Mind becomes a weary boulder,

on a faltering mountain covered in fog.

Forsaken by the light,

 in darkness, emptied hope walks alone.

Joys of the illuminated world

dance in fading memory.

. . .

Copyright © 2019 Zachary W. Gilbert

 

A graveyard, it would seem demonstrates best, the equality of human life.  Death is shared by all.  The cold ground holds no movement, no warmth, no memory, just a silent echo of life.  Dusty bones remind us that someone, once was here, but by then, it is too late to be kind.  Life holds a secret within our bones.  The hidden truth, that we are are the same.  We are all equally valuable.  We are all human.  During life, some feel inferior, some think they are superior, but at the end, the reality that we are the same is all that is left.  Skin color, hair color, tattoos, obesity, wounds, muscles, and even the brain becomes dust.  The value of every human is universal.  It perhaps becomes one of the most difficult things to master in life, to love and respect someone all the way down to their bones.

. . .

Copyright © 2018 Zachary W. Gilbert

To be in motion,

one must breathe.

To be in positive and productive motion,

one likely will be out of breath.

. . .

The conversation began to poison the air.  To call it a conversation may be a slightly perverse notion.  It was perhaps more of a monologue that had only one audience member and hence only one victim.  I pressed my palm to my ear and scrubbed it in a circular motion as if to shoo away a cloud of hungry mosquitoes, intent on flying through my ear canal and sucking blood from my brain.  I pondered the notion that those who complain often have a script printed on old leathery paper that smells of rot and decay.  The words are fixed, and the heart of the speaker is calloused.  I considered the notion that, to complain is human, sure I will give you that, but to suffer in the stagnation of idle circumstance, blaming everyone but self is toxic and in my opinion, a choice.

I managed to push out a few words under the blanket of a heavy sigh, “Have you considered doing something?” Or was it, “That person has been doing this particular volume of good things for me.”  Whatever it was that I spoke, it was slain in a fury of toxic words from my brief audience.  The suggestion of action or reevaluation of details apparently was not conducive with vomit of words I was enduring. The monologue resumed, and I left the room without speaking.

The silent and crisp winter air caressed my red cheeks as I sipped on hot and sweet coffee.  Then I imaged a swirling cloud of greenish poison drifting out of my head and becoming instantly devoured by a clear blue sky.

. . .

Copyright © 2018 Zachary W. Gilbert