The Abode of the Weary

    The silence takes on a weary aspect of oppression, and the gloom of the wan silvery light of an overcast sky only deepens my nostalgic melancholy.

       The room that I call mine, cluttered, out of order and out of sync.  Or maybe it is synchronized, but not the random assortment of beer cans and toppled broom sticks, and dirty clothes in the corner covering the basket which is supposed to hold them- no, these things are definitely not assorted in any kind of pattern or arranged with any amount of thought, just random chaos- maybe this mess has become attuned to the life that I now lead, an even grander architecture overlapping the themes of my life throughout.  Maybe I’m just slightly neurotic.  I don’t care to know, the thought fills me with trepidation.  

    Outside I hear the rain falling in patters against the window, and I can see in my mind the river flooding, but it’s distant from me so I am beyond caring.  

     The job to me, one that I loved so much before, is just a weight on my back now, and I can feel the wounds of the lacerations in my back like scars on my psyche leading me to the depressed state that beckons me to a grave too early.  

    The lies that I’ve found myself subject to have woven me up like prey in a spider’s web, but I guess that’s what happens to the kindhearted in this world.  Even if all anyone sees is the granite surface, they miss the veins of gold lying within, for the mountain makes them not apparent, you have to dig deeper to see it.  No one has the kind of dedication, though, they only see the shimmers on the surface of the lake, not the life flourishing within its depths.  
     
    My feet carry me down the stairs to get another Heineken out of the fridge, it just as dark and cluttered down here as the room that I just left to return to.  Not even the light of the fridge illumines the kitchen, the damn bulb is dead, been dead for months but I just either don’t have the will or the worry to replace it, maybe both.  There’s nothing here for me, I realize.  The fridge is empty, there are old pizza boxes and some bologna in there- even though there’s no bread to eat it on- guess it’s bologna for dinner tomorrow.  There's the Heineken, I don't even derive any joy from the sight of it any longer, I just drink it because it's there so I take it.  I withdraw my lighter from my pocket and pop the top off of the import, taste the bitterness of the brew for which is my signature.  Twist my nose, a sign of distaste which I assume is now just a phantom habit from the days when I used to wretch when I first started drinking this shit.  

     I don’t even know how I came to love this beverage, this brew.  It’s not even that good when you think about it-when I think about- but I drink it anyway.  With a shrug and the chill of the cold bottle in the palm of my hand, I head back upstairs to the room that I call mine and sit and pine on the twist and turns that life has taken me upon, drinking this damn beer that I used not to like, that I’ve come to just accept, within the chaotic force of entropic energy that my room has become.
 
    In the wan light of my room I spark a cigarette to curb the gnawing edge of the hunger in my gut, tendrils of smoke swirling up into the air.  I ash it and puff the damn thing away, and it goes up in smoke right to the end of the butt.

I guess that’s just the way life goes, like a cigarette, up in smoke until you're down to the butt.