All of the gin joints in all of the towns and you had to walk into this one*

Beginnings don’t flow as easily as they used to, they were a

Cup already overflowing, but still being filled up past the brim with words and sentences and laughter

Dirtying the floor with adjectives and phrases and jokes that I couldn’t find room for anymore.

Everything, everything, was joy and dreams and

Fire. It was a feathered bird peeking out over its nest and

Glowing coals being raked over a

Hearth that somehow smelt like

Ice cream and a muddy dog and salt water taffy

Jam. Beginnings are not meant to have endings, no XYZ. I do not quite

Know what has changed.

Life flows past me a little harder now,

Meandering lazily through bends where earlier it rushed past.

Now, beginnings are slow and hard and I question them. Looking out for

Obvious clichés and traps that will entangle me, ensnare me, take me down

Paths and lanes I am not ready to travel.

Questioning everything, everything that used to be a given.

Railings are made to trip over and Horizons are just lines

Separating me from where I am and where I want to be.

Time has turned the old words to ashes in my mouth, left me with burnt embers hanging off my

Uvula. The Blue of the sky turned into a

Violent violet and everything has

Withered.

*Line adapted from a dialogue in the movie Casablanca(1942)