November Ends

It is harmattan again. The people I love, like
the old trees, are distant or dying. I walk the
boulevards outside the house. The air, sharp,
whitened by a dry cold. There is a loneliness
inside the morning breeze. I can tell because
it reaches for my wrists, wants to sit on skin
like mist upon a hill. It is the same wet thing
that weathers me. It clouds, quietly, inside a
place I cannot name. Such territory, the body.
Often we seem to be visitors within its walls.
As in, who knew you could hurt like that, little
heart? Anyway, someone else has to teach the
wind not to be lonely. I have been preoccupied,
learning what to do with the multitude of myself.
I am thinking of less harmful ways to be alone.
So far, the plot is going terribly bad. Even the
music is some kind of knife. It doesn’t wound,
but it unwinds the wound. I know one thing is
certain—I do not deserve my sadness. Forget
the theory that the humble would never proclaim
their humility. I am a good man. But we must
be foolish if we think, just for our goodness,
the world must offer us any mercy. The wine
that poisons the ghoul will poison the saint.
And I think, in spite of the bluntness, it is fair.