Here again in the wasteland feeling the bitter bile.

Nothing matters, nothing gained, nothing helps -

I dream again of the fire and the flags and the way you flipped your hair to the side in the cold wind. I cherish the thought of you kissing me when we thought tomorrow would never come.

But I get distracted by the tiny monsters that gnaw and nibble at my ankles and stomach; they burrow into the tiny vessels that surround my heart chambers. I know all their names and faces, but they have no fear of me like the fear I have of them.

I loathe this - this intertwining of emotions programmed into my synapses like some survival instinct. All that I love turns to stone, turns to ice, turns to shit in the end, and I fight, kick, and spit at you for even trying to hold me; so just fuck off and leave me alone before you leave me for good. You are only deja-vu; returning to return and teach me the lesson I thought I already knew.

But there are six birds on a telephone wire that sing to me of more important things, hypnotizing me to forget about you. Their singing is a new constitution to live by and they whisper to me that the Gods of tomorrow are nearby and not to give up hope yet.

What is hope? I ask them, but they take to wing, flying between heavy drops of rain in a grey summer sky, the color of my eyes when the rage of living seizures me into frothy fits.

And I curse at them to take me back to those days when all was ease and peace; let me breathe again slowly in deep breaths heaving where I can smell the green of the surrounding forest.

Because now I am certain that the Gods of tomorrow have forsaken me and have taken me for a fool.