how to be forsaken

early in my walk

i pass a bookstore and stop

go in and purchase steppenwolf

i’ve read it before

but feel the need to read it again

 

back on the sidewalk

i am neither apollo nor dionysus

i am not that relevant

 

physics and neuroscience bring understanding

but not answers

and tonight i left my flask at home

 

invisible as i roam

a ghost observing from the cold depths of a grave

but i am not jacob marley

i cannot help you be saved

 

i am just grateful that tonight there is no rain

and without my flask i am twice as dry

but still there is no question why

my thoughts and walks are without meaning

 

like the meaningless motion of molecules

i’m just enjoying my walk

and going where my mood takes me

 

i enter a bar

order a draft

open the paperback to a random page

and read,

“Solitude is independence. It had been my wish and

with the years I had attained it. It was cold. Oh, cold

enough! But it was also still, wonderfully still and vast

like the cold stillness of space in which the stars revolve.”

 

some believe the glass is half empty

some believe the glass is half full

i believe the glass doesn’t exist

but still i motion to the bartender

to refill mine

 

***