Cluttered Rooms

There's a room that's overstuffed to the very top, and every dust-crammed corner seems to hide something. Every stacked, crammed, and shelved book holds the oil fingerprints and strokes of reader's past. And the inhabitants never notice that the fox-hole pathways are growing smaller, and the tile is getting black and cracked. 

I've never walked barefoot in that dwelling. 

But I've been waking as if it makes up the particles of my brain. Coming down the avalanche of back-to-back migraines. Trying weakly to scratch the cobwebs from my eyes, while so many falling books (of ideas un-defined) dent my skull and seem to reverberate. 

I'm forgetting to stop and decide, unable to commit what'll bring the right returns; running back and forth between the swells of weekends. 

And outside in the misty cold there's postcards, posters, and fliers stapled upon the same telephone poles. They all seem so stenciled, so emphatic, so inviting, I'm almost convinced they've already been lived. 

The pencil bleeds into planner pages, begging not to be scratched out - so much could happen in a night. It's that intoxicating feeling in the sight of orange street lamps, and excuses to find your breath visible.

Baltimore itself is stiffening up between swells. Like a feast it's bracing for holiday returns, hiding the invites from public view, and pulling us together; closer into the dark where the airplane lights don't reach. Where the visitors never look. 

It'll be a little more overcrowded soon. It'll hustle and bustle, and smell like cinnamon. 

It got to be winter so quickly this year.

And everyone is saying "I'm tired" like its something new. Tired. Tired. Tired. They're tired. We're tired.....or are we just exhausted by our endless to-do lists? Are we bored?

There's a jittery alternative; the addictive, provocative notion of organizing the chaos of ideas into creation. (if only you can make it through the rooms, and over the sore muscles). And holidays approach with time to sleep.

So, smile at a fine semester, and the events of its close! Keep adding stories to the shelves...even if they wind up in a heap---they went written. 

Daily headphones: The Script's "We Cry". And for added fun...clip from a Guy Fawkes party a few friends took me to last weekend: