Words Left Along

It could have been any bar in the city; why I chose this one, I don’t know. 

What I did know, however, was that I didn’t want to be bothered or alone. 

I can’t help but think, “If you stare at something long enough, you’ll learn something.” What I was trying to learn from my cocktail was something lost on me. 

Yet, as I spun the glass and watched the straw and ice lag behind, there was a sense of comfort. 

Each new side that emerged—a changing landscape of jagged peaks illuminated in reds and pinks—caught my eye. 

Maybe it’s telling me that there’s more to the world than it seems, or perhaps that the winds of change are just as certain as death. 

That nothing in this or any universe is immune to inevitable change.

Who knows what wisdom this glass holds? 

Maybe it’s only showing me what my mind needs or wants to see—a 3D Rorschach test of whatever it may be. 

Perhaps the adage is true: one can learn from something if they stare at it long enough.

Maybe there is something to this place. 

I said it could have been anywhere, yet anywhere isn’t an option. 

Perhaps it’s the familiarity of cinema that tilts the scales of choice. 

The Flats have the comfort of tribalism, yet I’m here. 

Strange. 

Simply, it could be that I just like this place, but I feel inclined to shoot that down. 

I want to say, rather, it’s precisely that this is the least worst choice. 

I wonder if there’s anything I can pull from that—some crumb of wisdom. 

Perhaps, on the universal scale of things, the least worse place to be is actually the best place to be. 

After all, it takes home the title of first place in a league of trash. 

Who knows? 

If there’s anything to be found here, it’s in myself—why I choose to write detailed, analytic, and borderline poetic chunks of madness. 

What does that say about me?