a drop seeping through the ceiling, avoiding the envy of looking in from the outside of a skylight. dripping into the tub where the finish is flaking off like chips of cracking drywall and paint. pausing on the ringlet of the drain, perhaps terrified of the meat grinder on the other side.

it slowly passes away to a place where none return from, in a pool of eternity. some call it purgatory, some call it hades. the river acheron, the river styx; infernal imagination damning desire with consequences administered externally.

(from another plane.)

plateaus where we wander with smoky apparitions affixed to our shadows. the ground caves in around our feet, and the drops besiege them like wildfire.

mindful, not of the future, but of the present. i am embattled in woes of life too grievous to overlook for the imminent suffering of the future.