Friendless

In this sea of enigmatic partners
patience seeps, stringy, through my fingers
fine grains of dried blood, paper shreds.

I look below my surface and find emptiness
Small saplings of future evergreens
Pinecones crushed by small shoes, dog feet,
An energy hanging over the scene like a pall
No time for hello
No reason for goodbye
In this time of indignance
This war of priorities
A game made cunning by the players

Each tree shakes restlessly in the rain
Each leaf lets its stem tear cell by
Deoxygenated cell
Pore by pore
Wet branch bones struggling to rid themselves of
The mess of flat, waving hands
They fall in piles by the curbs
Receive only the ocassional speeding tire
Crushed under the weight of exhaust

I am exhausted by the race to win
More cards to my deck
More numbers on my cell
More addresses
More emails
I'm letting go of the frenzy
Reacting less to rejection than to
My own need for solitude
I'll take hermitage for granted no longer -
It has its merits
I was born this way and I'll likely expire
Alone, this way
Without the assemblage of fireflies at my fingers
Kept in clear jars, lighting my way.

-gss04