the guest house} AHHS jabberwocky literary magazine publication

 Thursday night the weather flatlines and again the clouds drip, lighting penetrating the sky, the pause and then the booming cry. The Power blinks off and on before failing, abandoning my apartment to the illusive depth, leaving me with the only source of light; the vast window that stretches beyond the human eye can see throughout my broad place of occupance that is still far from what I would name a home. I sit on the sofa parallel to this window view and cozy myself  Here, 15 Central Park West Condo, between 61st and 62nd Streets adjacent to America's lush Garden, above me houses Denzel Washington and beneath me; Sting. I don't work at all or move a muscle; I have nothing more to learn and nothing else to do. 

Now all that is left to do is admire what I will never have but across from my place is a sight more valuable than any period piece framed in the hall of the Louvre museum, nor any worldly treasure could impress me as much as The Guest House ahead of me run by the many inhibitors over the years, identical to mine. The fascinating Guest house is a home belonging to nobody and everybody. It's warm in there, I can tell because the snow falls and I can see a thin steam emit from ahead of me. The first family had come for a wedding, they decorated the table before the window with Turkish delights, finger pies and thick strawberries dipped in bright white chocolate all laid about a lacey cloth on a silver platter, the flowers in the bright white vase. 

The sweets stayed still for days and days, a car accident on the way home from the wedding, drunk driver, mangled and there I foolishly watched for a week where the strawberries began to rot and the delights oozed and the flowers withered. Again, Rain catapults and shatters the ground beneath me, rattling the lights on and back on. I focus ahead the lights are still off but the candlelight flickers I see my picture looking back at me. Every window is a reflection, a reflection of thee, many of them the cleaners come, wash away before and incomes the next, keeping my entertainment fresh yet fangled while springs hope above the fence. They string together a bare thin wire. 

The Guests will evolve into the next and the family leave the traces of another fine story, The Missionary trip, harbouring their stolen youth of Christ and then a mafia boss father with his paranoid wives, nothing else left to flee on the run for the rest of their lives, or the high school friends from decades ago, who play poker and reminisce on before that language can show. Do they realize we are all on display, no ghost thin outline, no creature can ever disobey?  We are both wooden caricatures along the totem pole, that such sciences and rhythms could control. But the piercing bone of the glassy frame was my loneliness, masked by empty frames. Wealth amassed, but happiness became elusive games. As these guests departed, one by one, day by day. And in their fleeting presence, I found a semblance of a whole. I wish deep within, another would complete me, end my story No longer lonely, he cherishes each day, For I've already learned that true riches lie not in wealth's display. But instead, I keep watching, I keep Imagining but there is no Guest House, there is, no traveller or visitor of any foreign company but my cold reflection across from me and my filthy, stinking gluttony.