All of the gin joints in all of the towns and you had to walk into this one*Beginnings don’t flow as easily as they used to, they were aCup already overflowing, but still being filled up past the brim with words and sentences and laughterDirtying the floor with adjectives and phrases and jokes that I couldn’t find room for anymore.Everything, everything, was joy and dreams andFire. It was a feathered bird peeking out over its nest andGlowing coals being raked over aHearth that somehow smelt likeIce cream and a muddy dog and salt water taffyJam. Beginnings are not meant to have endings, no XYZ. I do not quiteKnow what has changed.Life flows past me a little harder now,Meandering lazily through bends where earlier it rushed past.Now, beginnings are slow and hard and I question them. Looking out forObvious clichés and traps that will entangle me, ensnare me, take me downPaths and lanes I am not ready to travel.Questioning everything, everything that used to be a given.Railings are made to trip over and Horizons are just linesSeparating me from where I am and where I want to be.Time has turned the old words to ashes in my mouth, left me with burnt embers hanging off myUvula. The Blue of the sky turned into aViolent violet and everything hasWithered.*Line adapted from a dialogue in the movie Casablanca(1942)