i have only dreamt of running

Behind the bars sits a figure, blackened by the vibrations

of a recurring need to shelf books

and mend things. The itch

is not paid attention to. We were always told

that itches go away when we do not scratch them;

discomfort is alleviated when feelings are dampened.

During the strained hour, the inverse of a harsh three o’clock scorch,

the man sits before the beyond

and places his palms against the glass.

I am no more than a lizard, he thinks to himself

And whistles suddenly, an embarrassed and troubled afterthought,

to assure the empty room that he knows freedom.

Of course he knows song.

During the night when every household

silently sighs into the cold, suffused by the good and placid absence of clamor

Each room unfolds and unlaces,

Nooks of the secret life;

The hallway becomes an endless stretch of reliving,

Anyone’s footsteps absorbed by the certainty of the carpeting

The nighttime reveres the vitality

of the blanketing quiet.

And no rabid monologue, no tempestuous resonance, no despair

is too dark and irreconcilable

for the calm absolution encountered in this dimness.

His pacing quickens at irregular intervals.

Heavy and sodden with inane fantasies,

He wishes the world were watching.

This is noir, he whispers

The fairytale cannot be worn now.

The apex desire

Sincerely moved by the taunt of abandon.

He is a poet, a dynamic conscience,

Shepherding words and manning the virginal expanse of the white page,

But he only dreamt of running