His was to be a road of warn and worn,

saddled in piecemeal fragility, poised upon the brink of his otherworldly heart.

No rings of Saturn to juxtapose here with there, horizon with fingertips.

No multiple moons taking turns rising and falling in the sight-line of his dreams.

No dusty, chemical-winds racing to pour themselves in heaps of derivative normalcy.

Beyond the vale of his thoughts, in pools of reflective light, came time

time…

time…its slow ache, d  r  a  w  n out, s  t  r  e  t  c  h  i  n  g then from now from when.

Along the borderlands of his discontent there lived others,

other souls of perishable flesh, volatile spirits, meandering hearts

who linger around burning garbage cans hoping to catch but a glimpse,

a passing glance of someone whose hands are still warm

whose life still contains the fragrance of love,

whose passions remain undulled by restraint and the ticking clock of desperation.

Then, as night falls from day falls from night,

a single drop of blood trickles down his shredded cheek.

His was a life renewed, born again in the tattered oneness of a cracked, brittle rosebush.

He had found a place of belonging among them in thorn-ed bliss.