it is the far end of the day

past the time when my shoes were still on; the lights of the emma tree are off and it is darker in the room, and if you asked me right now what my favorite medium was i would have to answer shadows, you should see the way the streetlamps are using shadows to paint those now-not-so-empty white canvasses propped against my new yellow walls, painting the walls themselves, painting the address on the glass door backwards against the walls, the curvy window bars nothing but shadows tossed in a soft helter skelter about the room.  to my right is an old wooden child's chair and a pale blue planter, both empty of anything but those shadows, and they stand next to the canvasses and that's the painting i want, that's the photograph i want, but i'm not good enough to catch it and it's too dark to sketch, and it becomes a private image i keep to myself.  i can give you only the words.

they come at me, these images, when i am not ready, when i am unprepared and tired, or they wake me from dreams and i write their words in the dark, finding them days later scribbled in a notebook half kicked under the bed, almost lost, almost undecipherable, but still alive, still breathing, more alive than i, and they are almost in tears asking to be written, to be painted, but they are more alive than i, and lately not so understanding.  lately they feel time running out.  i am a traitor, a deserter, and i walk away, i too, in tears, with no excuses.  my heart is too full.

across the room lilycat is watching the deserted night. 

i see nothing and she sees a leaf stir in the wind. 

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