The Last Days of Freedom.

These quiet, darkened days,
dampened by the cries of argumentative seagulls,
echoing the sounds of a town
I once called home.

The noises trail into the night,
the stars shiver with their distance.
These solitary, inner moments:
my last days of freedom.

We sit with contented patience,
awaiting tiny fingers
linked to tiny palms.
We sit with contorted bodies
one blossoming, the other decaying.

And people will ask:
“What did you do with those last days of freedom?”

I drift into dreamy pastures,
telling them,
“I was wild…”
and reiterate my past victories:
“I was wild, man. I bloomed,
like those wildflowers in the park.”

I’ll recall Polish models sinking to their knees,
the deafened woman smashing rocks through windows,
and the succession of married women
who came before her.
But the truth of my last days of freedom
is less poetic.

These cloud-covered evenings,
undulating with soft, marshmallow forms,
envelop my dull and senseless synapses.
They used to shine,
but now refuse to connect
these cloud-covered evenings
drift endlessly by.

I’ve spent these last days of freedom
resigning from the binds that tie,
taking risks once again.
I’ve spent these last days of freedom
worried I have no idea how to hold that tiny hand.

I’ve noticed I haven’t got a face anymore
it’s fallen completely away.
I press my coarse hand
against five-day-old bristles
and ponder the great questions of my newfound life:

Would Hemingway understand influencer marketing?
Would Bukowski like my website?

I sit back and watch my cat catch moths.
He hasn’t been happy of late.
Every tiny movement startles him.
Maybe he realizes it’s his last days of freedom too.

I watch him snare a moth,
chew it, then spit it out,
realizing it wasn’t what he ordered.

I sympathize wholeheartedly.
This quiet, darkened thought
drifts into one of my last days of freedom.