the Place Between the Mountains and the Sea

the devil and his art

Somehow, he found himself in the middle of the road,
sitting just above the yellow dashes,
the sea to his right and the mountains, who felt a little too big
too menacing, too uncomfortable, too natural, too green,
to his left.

A painting he never particularly found meaning in.

At his lips, a stick of cancer felt so sexy, so fucking phenomenal,
and its absense grew more and more apparent,
to both the man and his stained fingertips.

The ocean's clean breath sank deep into his lungs,
and found its way to the parts that weren't blackened,
that weren't too far gone, sold away to the
world's greatest tyrants.

He rhythmatically tapped the concrete with his index finger
and then his middle finger, and shut his eyes to everything,
only to be reminded of what the devil's finger looks like.
And how if you held it and set fire to it, he'd radiate
with happiness.

It would be nice and easy to say that the land around him
took on an ethereal, ghostly moment of unconsciousness;
that the world quieted down, to allow him to listen to
whatever that voice in his mind was,
whoever's.
Whatever's,
Whoever's.
He didn't like the voice, it was baritone and sounded like
the owner was a chainsmoker.

Completely opposite of that of the wind's.
Goddamn, her voice tickled the trees' necklines
and sounded overwhelmingly unreal,
like a place one'd only get to
by falling down a rabbit hole.

And nothing stopped,
not for a second,
no.
He still needed to
stare admiringly and passionately
at that fucking
work of art.

Because that's what artists do.

Sat like he awaited directions from a teacher wearing
a polka-dotted blue dress, like someone who
didn't know what a cigarette was,
he watched the world, and how quickly it moved,
unapologetically.

Somehow, he consumed, stomached and digested
a fresh work of art --
one he originally thought was pretentious
and wrote off as

"an empty space with promise that would or could
never be truly realized,"

And he fell in love with the idea
of an empty space with promise that would or could
never be truly realized --
one that he couldn't just let touch his chapped lips,
and put out moments later.