My Neighbor George

A headless oak that looks monstrous with Its spindly limbs exposed through the fog a line of muddy cows gathers atop the shoulders of work worn hilltops. The flesh of the earth and soon there will be no more hills. My neighbor George had a face like an overdriven mule He squeaked out a screen door dragging a smoke the kind that stains your tongue. Smelling the rain on a good sunny day still in the dreary season but tiptoeing to spring. I joined him for there was no one else, not enough land between the either of us. "We like it when things are hidden from us" I stared at him and thought I agreed. Words can be slippery It would be easy to continue on this way I’m not stunned by my own labor anymore. I only had windows into George's life we shared views of each other's kitchen sinks. He was always bent over cutting celery and apples, and I swept the porch overtaken by briar thorns and baskets of mulberries, the kind that stains your tongue. There's something so joyful about being hidden at least I thought so when I moved here. George didn't share much he half-heartedly rounded his thoughts as they tumbled out. His jaw would drop and hang on certain words. Can this be my way? Settling down inside yourself like a proof of life.  "Are you a head or a heart person?"  There's something to be said for voices quiet, gentle, and meaningless. That we can settle on I can't go home anymore.  Shame is a wonderful motivator; it doesn't discriminate It'll take everything you spent your whole life practicing. But what does that leave you with? I think George enjoys my company which is a testament to something given he was here long before me. What must've been one home was split in half with doors that lead to nowhere. George had one half and I had the other. He got the basement and I got the attic and the mortgage so I can never leave which is I guess what I wanted in a way. I stayed up later than I should have after George's slippers took him down and off to bed. The cows were gone now, and I counted jack rabbits hopping over the moon and back down amongst the Bermuda grass swallowing them whole. Maybe when I die, I’ll come back as one of those jack rabbits and I’ll be at the edge of myself, falling off the edge of myself even. It’s funny all this time searching for a high place and now I needed all this distance from myself that becomes the sadness and the disgrace just to want to become a child again.  I've been spending a lot of time searching for a "good tired" because like tonight I hate ending a day with energy left to give. It's an awful feeling to not tremble off to bed with aches in places they have no name for. I'd like to turn an odd job into a career or better yet a career of odd jobs. So far there are no jobs, and I've spent all the money I have in pursuit of that high place that only taught me to settle for less. If I could only settle for less but less than this is no living at all. One day George says he’ll buy the farm but when that day comes he won’t be around to see it. In the morning I'll settle into myself again and meet George in his happy garden where if I'm lucky, I can spend the whole day rolling in the dirt and that will be my job. Because all I want is to feel useful and if I can’t be useful I can at least look like I tried. Because you cannot walk 10,000 steps a day with eight hours of sleep and hope to feed a family.