conditional imperative

must write.  must write.  dont want to write.  sloth.  fear of effort.  all for naught.  drag seared bleeding body through rocky desert to reach the end all for naught.  burning light from above.  me to create the only shadow.

coolness in the shadow.  cant see in the shadow.  dark in the dark.  if its my dark i can be comfortable in here.

i crawl on, creating my darkness below me, the only inside, where i can be me.  i stand between me and my shadow.  crawling i stand.

dont want to write.  a life devised to avoid things.  culture built so that all things can be operated on out of the space between hand and eye.  come here all you things over here where i can get you hands on you.

worms in puddle after rain.  stupid worms.  in the freedom of nature a boy is playing with them, mashing them with his shoed foot, another boy watches, asks first boy why, :cause i want to: and the snarl and clenched fist like hes prepared to fight for his right to kill worms.

second boys son, younger than boy one, him too, with the worms.  pulls them until they are broken inside, then pulls them apart.  you know, i said, when you do that they get dead.  :i want them to be dead:  he seems to have become a fine young man he does.

i curl up into my shadow.  i expand my shadow.  my hole.  my refuge from the burning light, the rocks, the thorns, the wild dogs.  the more i curl the smaller it gets.  only i stand between the burning light and my shadow.  the light & the heat, sharp rocks, etc. compell action.  one moves and dies or one is still and dies. 

the trick was that the shadow turned out not to be empty.  away from the necessities displayed in the light.  darkness, where the ghosts of possibility live.