The Unburdening

It always starts small,

a few dark flecks on the pavement,

before the whiplash that sweeps it all:

the dust off the streets,

the dust off the people.

It has made a bad habit of appearances.

It turns up when your attention has wandered,

sometimes while you're looking straight at it,

then vanishes before certainty can take hold.

You learn not to mistake a darkening sky for rain.

More often than not, the clouds gather,

the air turns heavy,

and the earth is left with dust for hopes.

On the days you need it,

it beckons like an oasis to a parched parakeet.

You persist.

You've learnt to become stubborn in its absence.

Sometimes you give it your all,

strain against the silence,

and come away with nothing

but a head gone light

and constellations scattered behind your shut eyelids.

And then, one day,

it simply arrives.

No knock at the door.

No dampness gathering at the temples,

no sweat beading above the eyebrows.

Just there.

As though it had never been missing.

As though the universe,

having left you to your little eternities,

had finally found a moment for yours.

It gathers force.

The pressure breaks.

A deluge through a city

of lesser creatures:

rats beneath the paving,

roaches behind the walls,

the lives we keep out of sight

and name as pests, vermin, nuisances,

as though filth were always

somewhere else.

The drains gurgle.

The gutters run clear.

The city relinquishes what it cannot contain.

For once, the world makes room

for something to leave.

You know it should stink, but it doesn't.

Or perhaps your nose

has decided to mind its own business.

You don't investigate.

You don't ask how long it will last.

You've learnt that full stops

are sometimes kinder than semicolons.

But for once,

you remain unaware of the moment,

in the moment.

Happiness is taking a shit

like your intestines greeting you good morning.