placelessness (2nd course)

            Composed from restlessness, without a natural position to speak of, or from any discrete habitat besides this late hour where sleep is only dreamt, I will recall habits that some dwell on as traditions — adaptations placed beyond the ritual of changing mere individual properties — nearer to wall-to-wall informalities acquired as traveling reenactments — bearings accustomed to boundless flight: from my perspective, formative years of moving but never fully unpacking the peculiar effects.

In reality, this shouldn't be read as a pointless act — as a matter of course, it saves time — & cardboard boxes — just re-tape, load into a rented truck & then go

. . . sometimes at night, in a hurry — sometimes slow as an unsure decision — or back & forth like a rubber band stretched & released between thumb & index, extended to its touchy limit to only fall lax, smacking of a loose charm bracelet that's lost-it past projections reuniting again in a pinch . . .

(Is a pinch a touch? I guess it depends on whatever you get overfamiliar with — even uneasily. Belonging can become a personal possession.)

            Maybe that's the spell of being a wanderer. After a while or a series of whiles, nothing surprises you, yet it's a new experience, more or less — filling-in, in & of itself — our self — at & around us

. . . even you, possibly, ever-presently sitting up, still awake as well, trying to resolve what that is —  that you staring from a mirror — who speaks back in opposite — who doesn't know the who we are — just how we appear. Run a hot shower instead — let the steam mist the verso away saying "enough about you; let's clear the air about me" — fog rising from your body while a cold draft sighs in below the closed door that will eventually have to be reopened, even if only to find nothing there but further alchemy. Again . . .

(But wait; there's more! There always is, isn't there? Not necessarily, but hopefully — or not — that word "hope": an agnostic noun — a romantic verb — it never knows what it truly is — only how it wants to be. As some know, when opposites hook up, conflict can be entertained as a common attraction.)

            Closing in, let me go on where I move that good optimists are fine — just daredevils betting on their ripcords. Go ahead, I guess — anything to lighten the gravity of existence with a gradual letdown rather than downright boldness — I merely suggest — because truthfully, I’m unsettled moreover by utterly confident people. I could be wrong, but I sense they're up to something — flogging persuasion to force an impression. No one wants that — implied pressure — an intimate nightmare. True liberty is such a fever dream that insomnia seems like a gift from a cosmos that only fancies you to death & doesn't want to let you go — until we finally surrender to our nature, as all animals must eventually sleep. And even then, when time is permitted to passively pass, it doesn't

. . . flying over your still shape like a zephyr hailing down illusions. It's why it's called meantime — it's mean, but doesn't mean to be. We live there, so why not call it home? For now, anyway . . .

(That's when I remember those places — those sections between ellipses — not sure of how they got me to where I am — just-there, then now-here — as nowhere as anyplace else — again — despite — somehow.)

            What about you?