Napowrimo 4/6/26: garbage day

 Today's prompt for Napowrimo tasks writers with a casual tone and dream imagery fusion.

I don't know, I told myself that life has no meaning so I wouldn't be disappointed when the trash guy didn't take that extra bag I left off to the side. Strict limits, he said. 

I don't recognize limits; I'm a citizen of the world, I said. He stared at me and started to say something, then his face wrinkled up,
he started gagging. I thought he might be faking it so I started laughing at him.
You know, play his game back at him and see if he caved.

He fell to his knees. Eyes bulged out,
deep sobs of coughing or something. I swore I heard music, jagged string hits and cymbal
crashes, but
that might be what I'm telling myself now. His whole body got
caked in sweat or something.
Inside the trash truck I heard rumbling from the compactor.
Oh come on, it said. Not again. Will you hurry up?

The trash guy, now a different, yet unnamed color was like, crying, and
I was sort of mortified but my feet told me to stay put. My feet weren't actually talking
or anything, but my shoes got really firm in their beliefs and I couldn't go
anywhere.
Meanwhile, the cymbal crashes I might have been hearing got angry,
I guess.
I could've sworn the sky looked a little meaner, but I
couldn't tell you what that means, even now.

Look, I'll pay the difference, I said.
We only accept crypto, shouted the truck. That's when I realized
I was being hustled.
I get it too. It's hard out here.
So I left that gasping trash guy con artist and his talking truck and my extra trash
outside. I had to clean the bathrooms something awful and it was already midday.

I've reevaluated my life a little. That trash shakedown has changed me;
I now have a belief system. I think life is
mostly nonsense,
but we all have a breaking point, at least that's what I'm thinking
as I look out and see the trash truck's wheel nudging the limp figure, lying
inert next to my extra trash bag outside.
Somebody should really go and check on that situation, but I still need
to dust the light fixtures.

Tomorrow is recycling day.

Solara 26-35

 Full steam ahead, comrades.

XXVI

I didn’t want to write it down/let it come to life off of the page/wanted it to stay in my mind/this swirling kite of internal flames and broken shards of glass/left it to whither in a darkened corner next to childhood embarrassments/instead/it scorches itself free from the paper and sets itself upon my shoulder/dutiful companion/my only true one/long since past the point of a single refrain/a single return to whatever came before its screeching entrance into this overturned room/this mess I’ve made/nothing to be done/everything is already set/

XXVII

When words are set to fire/the smoke is a wisdom and a killer/lifting itself high above the flashpoint of a flame/above our worldly concerns/the sky drinks what comes its way and coughs complicated clouds of sentence structure out over our fair city/the sky, always learning/always preparing itself for the next great idea we feed it/soon, the preparations will be over/soon everything will be the way we dreamed it/one bonfire at a time/

XXVIII

When flame is feeding/avoid meal time/you will see each crackle and burst/a snarl/fangs in a fevered dance with prey/not a single wet eye in the room/all susceptible to the itch/the scratch/the tug of the spark and scrape of each and every singe mark/lining the otherwise plain walls/off white/plaster/peppered with the marks of a flame whose only time keeping is the measure of its hunger/crawling towards what will soon be cinders/

XXIX

More than stupid hair metal/we’re something classic/individual spokes on a wheel that will only move forward/locking itself when reversed/nuts and bolts rusting with speed/with alacrity/we will remain in the front yard/dry rotted memories/a monument to what was once glorious and is now of slight embarrassment/each stupid solo/each flick of the mane/every shout and controlled explosion/none of it matters as the dew in the grass reaches our fringes and sets in/

XXX

What is/left for me/next to yesterday’s castoffs/waiting to be collected by the pickers/dustmen/the trash collection agencies/clandestine recyclers with balaclavas/I haven’t even had my say yet/gotten to shuffle through what you left for me/before/this descent/before the throngs and the multitudes of interested parties scrape the collection for personal gain/before/I can reclaim something to call my own/something to link me from a past to a present/to the future now/and the current then/all/in/one/

XXXI

King and beggar/ascend thy throne to the scorched heavens/clouds on fire again/should have sprung for the sprinkler package/here, on earth/we all stand marveling at the coronation of one so plain/the ascent to a sky so ruined/what has become of thy kingdom/here, on earth/we are far less presumptive/no royalty among us/not in the alleys/not in the dark spaces that sun and sky on fire’s light refuse to touch/wading through the refuse/we are all our own lords and magistrates/kindling for an even greater burn zone/ready for the next spark to fly/

XXXII

Will the molten earth burn through my fineries/I hope not/these suckers cost a grip/a whole band of the green stuff/none of that imitation/performance art pants and off brand accouterment/natural disasters are never timed well, but this was supposed to be more coronation/the scepter is already drooping from this heat/what is one man/even a king/to do about the ambient temperature/my loyal subjects/bring water/

XXXIII

I’ve always felt my most confident when wearing a mask/someone else’s face/someone else’s problems superimposed over my own/the rest is green screen/I am free to be a different version of me/maybe not me at all/to gawk and stare and sneer and smile and weep openly behind this heavy, sweaty material/even with my vision obscured/dehydration setting in/the dizzying smell of a latex overload/I’ve never been more myself/more alive/than right now/

XXXIV

Hello there/hi/yes/this is me looking to speak to you/will you open the door/will you/open your mouth/your heart/to the good news that I am willing to share with you right now/at this location/in this very moment/I won’t even ask for a hug/this time/we may have gotten off on the wrong foot/though I am willing to be your honest companion/maybe even a sidekick/if that’s what you are into here/yes, mother told me I can come on a little strong/but/you’re very important to me/to this entire enterprise/really/and I’d love to explain myself/explain us/to you/

XXXV

Sometimes these feel a little/too soon/too close to the heart of the matter/something that knows me in ways I am not sure I know myself/looking through my soul/instruments of knowledge/instruments of pain/instruments of experience/innocence/music as a weapon X/misery as a balm and a tonic/a body translucent/a spirit on display, rattling its cage/demanding, through tears and triumph/to let itself out for a walk on a day with a clear sky and birdsong/