Candle Burn

You sit there, the room buzzing like an old refrigerator, static on the TV turned up to drown out whatever’s scratching at the back of your skull. Somebody says, “Change the channel,” as if that’ll fix anything.

Like flipping from one cartoon to another, from one talking head to the next, makes a goddamn difference. It doesn’t.

But they don’t know that. Or maybe they do and don’t want to look at the truth.

Because here it is: it’s all the same. You burn a candle for your coma, and when it’s out, you’ll lie flat and quiet, a dead soldier without a war to lose. You’ll be another man who went to sleep for good, a sample of the defeated.

It’s a San Fran kind of stink we’re talking about. The stink of a city piled on top of itself, rats gnawing through its belly while people in suits step over the bodies.

People think cities like that are alive, but they’re wrong. Places like that aren’t alive—they’re starving, dying, thrashing, taking you down with them.

You wake up in a room with a window that hasn’t opened since before you were born, and it’s loud outside. Trucks belching fumes. A woman in heels that she can’t walk in. A drunk on the corner who isn’t singing, just mumbling something ugly to God or whoever’s left.

You try to stand up straight, and the weight bends you sideways, dust in your lungs. But you don’t quit. You never quit because quitting is worse.

You crawl out of bed with half a lung and two-thirds of a prayer. You paint the insides of your eyelids—bright yellows, perfect blues—because no one else is giving you that picture.

The world outside your head doesn’t do sunny days. It does cold pavement, missing paychecks, and people who forget your name.

So you make your sun. You carry it inside you.

And sometimes, if you’re lucky, you meet someone who understands it. Maybe it’s the man on the crate with the trumpet.

He’s homeless, his coat doesn’t close, and the trumpet looks like it came out of a war, but when he plays—Jesus, when he plays—angels hold their breath. He can make that rusted horn sound like heaven itself cracked open and let out a sob.

Nobody stops to listen except you.

You hear him, and you know life’s just a bunch of broken instruments played by men who don’t know how to quit. And maybe that’s what makes it beautiful.

But scars? Scars are the price of admission.

Some burn. Some freeze.

Some you earned, some got handed to you by people you loved too much. Most people don’t like to talk about that.

They sit on their barstools and pretend the world’s done them a favor–like they didn’t crawl through fire to get there. They call it survival, but you know better.

You know it’s just waiting for something to come and shake you out of it. Waiting for the woman who’ll look you straight in the eyes and say, “You’re mine for tonight,” and make you believe it.

And you? You’re the artist with nothing but dirt to till. You wake up at five in the morning with calloused hands and empty pockets and do the work.

You do it because you have to. Because starving’s better than quitting, and sometimes, even when you know the wind’s blowing it all away, you still sit there and scratch circles into the dirt. You shape something because it’s the only way to keep quiet at bay.

You know this, too–the sun will run out of batteries one day.

And when it does, no one will care what channel you left the TV on. Nobody will care about the paychecks you missed or the prayers you mumbled.

But maybe they’ll care about the trumpet man and his song. Perhaps they’ll care about how you kept burning, even when there wasn’t much wick left. Maybe they’ll care that you tried.

So you save up your nickels. You buy that trumpet man a brand-new horn.

You sit on his crate and let the music swallow you whole. And when it’s over, you won’t say a word because some things don’t need talking about.

Some things are enough just as they are.

And yeah, you’re not getting any younger. None of us are.

But the candle’s still burning, and for now, that’s all you need. That’s life.

You burn. You don’t quit.

You let the smoke curl up and out, and you watch the goddamn sunrise one more time.