Drifting into the comfort of false promises, I reconcile the sure disappointment of fantasy as an apology from a dear old friend I’ve seen too often enough to know any harm done is just natural self expression, a type of which I would never change, lest my friend lack integrity.
This night I spend with drink and visions, knowing the lie of seeing, yet searching nonetheless into the nothingness. Where there is nothing of consequence, I do find a wealth of possibility. Vast gratitude, enveloping scenes of revelry and appreciation, form objects of focus.
Aye these illusions of salvation do give men the hope to spring forth. The energy needed to make the last leg of the odyssey appears as a well, sprung up not from within, but from that very vision which will betray their hearts and led their minds further into madness and decay.
They say if you spend too much time in the desert, you start to see water where there is none. Alas, the opposite be true when at sea. Land appears where none there be. Signs arise in the moment when Desperation and Death converse. The fly on the wall is you holding your breath.
I spend my nights in the crow’s nest, spyglass in hand, full of rum and longing for a sign. The crew obeying orders given long before whispers of madness blew through the decks like fog in the still night. Giving the order now would mean faster death than deserved, for we hunger.
I’m looking at you through the glass, through fingerprints and melted wax, through memories and hope that’s past, through lingering ropes attached to masts on ghostship sails I captain with a skeleton crew who still threaten mutiny if I don’t change course but they’re too loyal.