Where Intention Once Stood

My thoughts walk barefoot on gravel roads—aching, slow, and scattershot. My mind drifts like dusk in worn linen—frayed, faded, and folding in on itself. My mind, grown tired of its tidy metaphors, slumps like a clerk at closing hour—unnoticed, necessary, numb. My brain, vast as prairie land at sunset, lies fallow—dreaming the hush between thunderclaps. My brain has taken the quiet path through woods not quite snowy nor lovely—just worn, and wondering where it last turned. My brain, a lantern gutted of oil, flickers faintly beneath the architecture of centuries—it remembers too much. My brain, a parched cathedral steeped in sermons long forgotten, weighs the dust in its own procession. My brain, a faded lyre, trembles with thoughts too tender to hold—each one a ghost of once-bright song. My brain, like Arthur's helm at gloaming, rests—dented by thought, dulled by long crusade. My brain, a theater haunted by a thousand borrowed tongues, performs rituals where intention once stood. Its voice speaks as though the soul were sharp as steel—blunt not by age, but by silence. Copyright © 2018 by Mickey Grubb