alarm box

Shuffle another puzzle piece
hoping the changing picture holds
the keys
to unlock and comprehend

the contents of this shifting box
of alienation

each of us

is locked into,
from birth. Yes

let's pretend,
to force some sense
to it. Each of us
is locked in such a box.
Alienation. Otherness. Square
sides walled in matte black-painted
tin, with just a tiny few and scattered
holes punched in, in shapes of stars
and moons, and tiny birds
like shuttlecocks -
to just let through
a light and sound.
The only points
of light

we ever really knew, but
all around. They always go,
but rarely stop. Beguiling

each other.
We are some
light show.

Sometimes,
when stars align
through tin, we catch
and glimpse another’s dancing glow.

We press up

close somehow,
between our orbits wandering
chaotic, somehow wrong but

yet responsive,

ultimately

now

we guess, we know
- if we both press,
we might reach through
by fingertips, to touch
- to mock at least, what we
can't have or trust, or do,
or take for keeps, what we

can't drop. Because
we never held at all,

in all this time
that was or
is to be.

It aches,
what’s in humanity.

And finding some ways now
to share, or then
to understand that ache
- this is the only thing
I find. The only thing
I ever knew was there, or real
or nearly strong, if only
fake: to care,
to press, and to release
it, stubbornly in us. And in
release, the ache

is good. So

good. We take
our mess, and let it
fall into array. All wonder,
comfort, trust, relief -
all joy set free
in song and play, and ceasing:
peace. For drawn-in moments.
Just enough, you could

find pause

to weep
to stop all clocks,
and make them know their
wrong. A quiet, glorious
and deep. Like

all the sleep
there ever was.