you can know the value of something while you have it
but its worth is something that can only be understood in hindsight
it’s a stupid feeling, isn’t it?
cheeks grow flush with a torrent of blood
is that embarrassment or shame? what vintage is spilling over this time?
you’ve drank from this glass before, yes, and you keep finding the same advice:
don’t mix alcohol, stick to what you started with
the lines begin to blur and you can feel it, whatever this is, whatever you’re choosing to call it this time around, starting to rhyme
the past bleeds into the present, this beginning taints what came before. the same tired melody, the same familiar sense of longing.
there’s no apprehension, no sense of self-preservation. you walk willingly towards the flames, just like you did then, just like you’ll do later. you’ve done this enough that you know you won’t feel any warmth by burning yourself but
but
but what if it comes back?
bury it shallow, you’ll be back soon enough. this is no fertile ground. keep using corpses for fertilizer, see if that helps. there are limbs scattered everywhere, gnarled bits of you, strewn around these barren fields like seeds before a harvest.
nothing grows here. you especially.
try again, though. tend your gardens and pray that it bears fruit. whatever you’ve left behind will rot eventually, right?
go take another thousand futures for granted. die within your comfort zone. assume everything and verify nothing. repeat it all, again and again!
this is no vineyard, despite how much you might wish it was.
