Of Collectors and Perhaps of Debt

I think 
this city
is a bubble 
waiting to burst.

Actually,
It is not something I think but know.

And I know
I’ll be there 
at the glistening edge, 
pin in hand,
ready to collect
the wreckage 
with the glass jar 
kept in my chest
to begin the ritualistic 
catharsis needed
to ensure a good harvest.
Spring in this city.

I’ve realized,
I have no idea 
what it is like to grow old 
anywhere else.

At least,
at an age where you recognize it as such.

And I wonder 
if “elsewhere” it also 
feels like being trapped 
in a hollow wonderland 
dipped in blue,
followed by gold
and a lying smile
with a sprinkle of cute.
Logic dictates 
“elsewhere” is just 
a collage containing
different variations of such
but my heart isn’t logical
and my mind is 
something else
altogether. 
The choices we make 
or faithless fate.

I’ve accepted
that I’ve become 
a collector 
of sorts.

But perhaps, 
it is that I’ve just resigned myself to it.

And I continue 
nomadic
and 
effervescent, 
collecting
each individual 
sadness 
I come across,
spectral 
and 
smoky — 
in lungs,
every one,
everyone 
has a little bit.
Of sadness
I mean 
and most have
more than that.
So the night feasts. 
And the ticking doesn’t end. 
And it is cyclical
and empty
and I am cyclical 
and possibly empty 
so I feast too
and become the night.
Vampiric 
symbiosis. 
Until I am one 
and sometimes two 
but I divide by zero 
and disintegrate
into the atmosphere 
to become 
a part
of the scenery again,
a numbing 
smile on my lips
the weight of which 
I am unable 
to correctly measure
but I know 
someday 
it will burst.
They will all burst
and perhaps then 
heal.

These Bones
I know — 
sewn,
fertile,
bare
left to fester
and spread
until 
the reaping.