Inhale
Evening burns pale blue edges while yellow-brown smears separate that blue from oranges, reds, and purples extinguish in black cityscapes and trees tops. Above, blue drains to night, spreading to black. And the sun sets to sleep. And we all sleep. Cities pretend to live on, awake, lighting the night with electricity, the sun’s truth so cheap to recreate, incandescent and fluorescent sparking ineffective sentences. A shy moon’s light sags in a thin smile when the day recedes through the expanding void filled by motionless lightning bugs. An invitation to exist. Under the moon’s guidance, each celestial bug’s bulb asks, pleads for you and me, for this one night, stay awake with them: laugh about the universe, tell stories from epochs dead, when life, so complex, so tedious, was the same as it is now: how we walk, what we say, whom we love.
It’s no different to the lightning bugs.
We are their stories, distant gods anxious for action, for a single soul to turn left down a road forsaken, though dark, ominous, the apparent maw of death; they want what we want, I suppose, a success for the individual. For bodies to overcome the residual implosive pressures detrimental to progress, for simple growth, expansion, desire.
If we wake to their glow, and watch, and tell them stories, they, too, may speak.
And perhaps they will say:
“I want
…………………………………………………………….you
…..…..…..to change the
…..…..way I
…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..…..breathe.”
Author’s Bio
Jon Alston has an MA in Creative Writing. Good for him. He writes things from time to time, and sometimes people publish them. Hot dog. He is married with three children. Way to reproduce. He teaches things to people. Well golly, Jon: good for you. Good. For. You
