I can see my tangled soul reflected in the winter lenses of an office building in the factory district. The background is sun and discomfort. A broken man sits on a bench holding a sign that reads: Why can’t I ever win? I walk through the city of stacks. No voices, only machines. They’re building a better world while destroying it.

I hear hammer on sword and the hiss of disembowelment. I see firecrackers exploding against brick walls. I can smell the soil of the world burning. I see an inviting bed on a bank portico and go to lie down. The dreams that come are full of cotton candy and pollution. Someone pokes me with a stick and tells me to leave. It was the dream police.

I have a feeling like empty wishes, fleeting desires, mowed down motivations. I walk to the end of Factory Street where the world of man and machine meets the sea and its god Poseidon. Looking over the edge into the depths of the dark waters makes me feel funny in my stomach. It would be horrible to fall in, I think. I’m not the Man From Atlantis. I’m the man from nowhere.     

By

Aaron Echoes August