Without Slippers

The shattered glass of promise will arrange itself periodically at our vulnerable feet. In our own kitchens. Sometimes while we’re sleeping. Without a formal announcement. Without shoes, or even slippers, We’ll be pulled across the cold, hard, tile floor by forces greater than ourselves. Mirrored razor shards seek our flesh, attack our every step, like ravenous jackals seek a fresh meal. Our blood becomes a well of fire. 
Or a slice of life for foreign dignitaries, and the insane.

There is no warning, ever. There are only people yelling, and folks with perfect teeth reading us the news. There are perfect smiles, and perfect personalities, calmly, smugly, designating us for the back of the bus, for the end of the lunch line, for the last ones to be picked when choosing up sides. There is a rampant lack of true contrition. There are delusions of grandeur, illusions and hallucinations dancing in our heads, and in the beds of our own children. There is collusion between the have’s and the have more’s, the sinners and the cheaters, the corporations and the whores, the liars and the fabricators, the winners and the leaders, the handsome and the arrogant, the proud and the profane. There is intrusion by the heartless, the ruthless, the cruel and unkind. There is deception, and unmitigated greed.

There are false prophets and broken churches trying to entice us with their creed, with their gods, and with their declarations of a permanent place to live, a place that promises to be not quite as miserable as the alternative was reported to have been. Not quite so dark, and not so alarming. Not so ugly, and not so grim. There are trips of all kinds laid before our feet, before our need, to appeal to our sense of the absurd. There are spiritual trips, ritual trips, retreat trips, festival trips, prayer trips, guilt trips, ego trips, and the occasional trip to the bathroom when we need to throw up. There are women behaving like men, and men acting like women, while children huddle in corners, in the dark, wishing to be loved, hoping to be noticed. The dogs will come around and lick their faces, look into their eyes, and let them know they’ll be here for them, to stand watch until their self indulgent parents come to grips with the here and now. Or at least until they come to some semblance of their senses. 


But there is no one who can really see them coming. No one to illuminate their path. There is just the light in the hallway for that. There is no one out there to run interference, or to even impersonate a friend. Only those who come with hands outstretched to cloud their heads, and offer up their own regret.
Oh yes, and rancid batter from the bottom shelf of that rusted out refrigerator in the basement.
Once again we find ourselves on the inside looking out. And we don’t like it. It’s a horrible place to be. 

Lacking in oxygen.

A godless landscape.