4 in the morning
by Tommy O
writing 2
one highly specialized GPT and many hours of remixing, refining, editing and rewriting i realize i have spent, perhaps, too much precious time for this exercise. but, i’m happy with the work.
4 in the morning:
between the fade of dusk and rise, in the clarity the dark brings, when thoughts meander and fray, there’s a pause, a holding breath in social function. it’s this stillness whose contours i traverse, reflecting. a passage not across strange and wild places, but the stranger paths that spiral in. while talk of grand aspirations bleach the day in the mouths of others, this hour shifts subtle in deft concentration, a shifting wind kissed sand of abrasion denying its restless upheaval that wears any to none.
i weave the silk that binds me, spinning tales as both protagonist and subjugated. shifting in the narration as they constrict, a tight pressing skin that wants shedding, the coming transformation too subtle to forecast its unending, a dance with phantoms all my own. a squirming hope to slip in the weight of heavy depths, to skin the flesh that holds thought and wonder how the breaking fall never pales the echo of instinct that carries me forward to another trite and merciless dawn, where the new wet skin of a smile lies.
darkness doesn’t call; it seeks, invades, enveloping even when i believe i shelter from its hand with my meticulously arranged existence. in the faded silence, when the world is not opaque, the echoing beat of my breast a deafening drumbeat, it speaks. speaks of things both lost and reclaimed, paths untrodden, and inspired embers turned to ash on my tongue.
inside is out in the short hours that balance the sun and social constriction. a fragile flame in a shadowy hall. in the pursuit of questions the process of learning to coexist with the inquiries, to find stillness in the unease, to accept the known and unknowable, becomes stoic. its yielding release, an unburdening of everything superfluous, a radical honesty of self understanding, of being.
perhaps, in dismantling, there’s a realization of sorts, a subtle alchemy not apparent to the observer but palpable to the observed. this gradual unveiling, a catching glitter of something nascent and raw beneath false layers. a dangerous path i find crucial to wander, impossible to deny.