Newspaper snow.

The snow is gone already. A few haphazard boulders put together in the ecstasy of yesterday's miracle shone in the sun. It's glaze was wearing thin by evening and melted into retreat back towards the earth. I have to admit I always want the excitement to stay with me, but it can't. It's the magic of it. The sheer quickness makes my head spin. Did I watch it all, can I catch it all? If I had a photograph I'd burn it to match the vanishing and sweetness of that retreat. Burn it while its unfolded. Take the newspaper unfold it and squash it. Roll it into a ball and drop it onto the edge of your tongue and chew it, it has the pulpish taste of the Eucharist. You might need the energy. I can't tip toe around the moment anymore; it's sharpness made ever so more exquisite by its unpredictable exit. I scratch my head and wonder if it's all gone, seeing a patch here, a second dripping there, only to realize that in doing so it's already gone. I suck myself into drought embarrassingly in search of yesterday's joy, and have a tendency to spend my day the way I have today.

It's not unusual that I forget my name these days and I have a slight headache. My fingers ache with the odor of rotting smoke rising up into my nostrils. I had broken down and bought a pack of cigarettes. It's aroma reminds me of people and most importantly rising and falling action I so desperately seek but where are the rooms and where are the rooms? I've been getting bored, so I trace out my map to a few department stores I frequent and where I like to finger the pages of magazines longingly. There must be a dozen of them and they all look the same, mostly full of strangers in pea coats and warm sweaters lassoing a child or two if they have them. This is what happens when I have free time. I can't grasp on to the bare hand I see, I waste gas and burn time under my nose asking where all the money is. It's strange how even architecture can bear down in shame and doubt when I'm in that mood, each house peering out in rebuke and sidewalk snarling with boredom at me. Awkward purple swinging shudders hang in indifference as people slam the doors I watch them leave. I get agitated at street signs for serving no purpose, or parse out ignorance from even the ambiguity of a four way stop. Heaven stop me. I turn the shame on this poor city. Where I live in Atlanta is a newly renovated part of town, surrounded mostly by the slowly decreasing but ever present decay of rural land and people. I used to bemoan this sort of struggle back home as country begets rust, afraid the asphalt and motor oil would spoil the idyllic, but as long as there are people there never was an idyllic, and my home's not unique. I am so naive. Obsessing over the tragedy wouldn't change a thing. And here are the other neighborhoods of collapsing apartment complexes and furnaces. You can see them by the light of the interstate, their backsides exposed to show the potential of cinder blocks and arbitrary arson. The renovated part of town consists merely of convenient shopping centers and parchment thin condominiums, deviated only by the immense acreage of parking lots stretched out bitterly across the plain. It's quaint at first and with a wallet full of cash it almost seems inviting. But I still hear the train breathing in the night and the cinder blocks here are only painted white. What am I to do about it though? My outrage is the equivalent of pin drop in a vacuum, raging against the night. Simply deflate it in the ease of morning. Boil some water for Chrissakes. Make some oatmeal and thank fate for such a chance. Eat a newspaper, you might need the energy.