My life as a Bagel

It’s 4:00 in the morning and I have risen from the all too brief, coffined sleep; driven by both insomnia and thoughts that race as shards of glass from a mirror cracked.

There in the dark of one small lamp, I see the keys and they call again to feed from me, from my soul’s blood, As Caesar from Caligari’s box, I shamble towards them and, without thought or notes, begin the process of creating and dressing the bagel that is my life.

This bagel, round and rolled by the floured hands of life’s unceasing stretch, becomes a full circle once again. A beginning, biting it’s own tail, becoming one with itself in a never-ending circle of smoke and the broken glass.

The day before it seems also to be a circle, rising and falling, hearing the complaints of the ones whom he serves and the knowledge that they will continue endlessly even when silenced. The glass bottle of existence stands besides the others on the rack above the bar. Winking and gleaming yet full of inner poison and empty promises.

He can choose from many toppings to his bagel. The cream cheese of self-indulgence, the butter of false promises never meant to be kept; or, the salmon; raw and stinking of it’s own weighted decay, which leaves a taste in his life which begs for fulfillment yet remains dry and strangling to his soul.

And so, the round and round carousel begins. He tops his life and goes out into the world to be consumed by it’s ever hungry gluttons and be digested into the wastecan of a loss, loathing and sleep-deprived burning eyes.

And the bakery from whence he came; with it’s black and white keys and their clicks and strokes, calls him from his day and into the night as a siren calls a sailor to his death. Round, unsound, and feeding back on itself–always to drain his thoughts and spit out his rage.

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