Still

Originally posted 12/27/2007.

I used to be able to
pull the world to a stop
and stare into
its perfection.

Everything
would slow down,
there was no
no wasted effort,
my arms synched as I turned
toward the yard
away from the screen door
closing behind me,
and then my vision
would sharpen at the edges
and deepen at the center
of my field of view
so that a jonquil stood out
dead still on the lawn, 
honed against the green
so it seemed cut off
from life, from death;
yellow as piss,
yellow as sunshine;

there was a time
I could stop the world
but I have forgotten how;

I have instead
learned how to think and so
I sit ass-heavy
on the couch all day
thinking of those
good times. 

When I leave the house
I close the door
carefully now, never
letting it slam,
afraid of the consequences;
I don’t know how good times
happen anymore
and I don’t want
to scare them off
so I stay in more often than not
getting excited now
only over monochromes:

marathon television viewing,
the relief when the cigarette
is finished and I can breathe
something that’s not grey fire
in my throat, the relief of
lighting the next one,
the longing for
a good night’s sleep

because the only time
the world stops now
is when I am not thinking of it,
when I cannot see it at all,
when the dark eats my dreams
and I live quietly
for a moment,
living dead
for an hour or two
at a time
in unconscious safety,

not succumbing
to the poisonous hope
that one day I’ll remember
exactly how I used to
become still enough to see
the razor beauty
of this world.