Gravel
Intro Are we all gonna make it? We’re not gonna make it
are we? Are we all gonna make it? When the lights go out I can still see the teeth. I can still feel the bite. And I keep breathing anyway while the night files me down.
Night sits on my chest like a wet coat hung wrong
A weight that stinks of missed calls and nerves strung long
I pace the kitchen tile, mapping cracks in the floor
While the clock drills holes in the drywall some more. Streetlights blink outside like eyelids that won’t close
Dust on the fan blades learns the name of my woes
I hold my breath long enough to see stars
the sharp kind
My hands shaking like receipts for a life I didn’t find.
I talk to the drain, it gurgles back slow applause
Raid the fridge for courage, staring into empty jaws
My phone face down is a small coffin for plans I couldn’t keep
When it buzzes I flinch like I’m waking from a bad sleep. Outside a siren pulls a wire through my ribs
While I audit the damage of all my little fibs
I picture the hallway in my head, the exit painted red
A door that never opens, just a wall inside my head.
I am not cured of the night, not tamed, not fixed
Not healed by a slogan or a drink that I mixed
But I’m learning where the floor holds
where the breath fits
Where the bleeding stops and the panic quits.
I will wake with the sun I will stand when it hurts I will shoulder the day I will push
I will work Not a happy ending, not a clean slate won
Just a step, just a breath, just a start with the sun.
I lay my clothes out like armor: threadbare hood
stubborn boots, Shirt with the bleach scar
digging up the roots
I write a list that doesn’t lie: pay what I can
Move my bones till the brain stops chewing on the man. There’s a whisper in the vent that tells me to quit
I look it in the eye and tell the bastard to sit
I kill two alarms before they’re born
leave the third as a flint
Floor creaks like an old friend giving me a hint.
I will wake with the sun I will stand when it hurts I will shoulder the day I will push
I will work Not a happy ending, not a clean slate won
Just a step, just a breath, just a start with the sun.
Window latch fights me, then finally gives
Night breathes out the secret of how it lives
In that thin seam of morning the walls stop their grin
The mirror shows a face
not the rumor of a sin. Mouth tastes like burnt plans
coffee fixes half
Walking through the rest with a bitter little laugh
Tie a knot in my resolve, tell the dark “no key
” I mean it like a locksmith, and the locksmith is me.
Maybe the street spits rain and pocket lint at my shoes
Maybe the numbers snarl like they’ve got nothing to lose
But I know the trick of a bill shaved down
A sandwich that fills the hollow in this town. I know the way a body forgives in installments
Ten minutes of heat, ignoring the involvements
The door opens if you lean, even if the hinge is rough
Like an old judge who knows that you’ve had enough.
I will wake with the sun I will stand when it hurts I will shoulder the day I will push
I will work Not a happy ending, not a clean slate won
Just a step, just a breath, just a start with the sun.
When the first line of light writes my name on the floor
I read it aloud, walking out the door, No miracle
no choir, just the click of the lock
The shoes remembering weight
beating round the block. Past where the night kept its knives and its trial
Into a morning that spans for a mile, Promising nothing
but showing up still, Enough to be moving
enough to climb the hill.
And that’s enough to be moving. Enough to begin. Enough to grind that gravel down to a path I can stand on. While the day starts grinding back.