A moth flutters and lands on the window ledge. In the brooding aftermath of rain-soaked silence, the city contemplates, a forgotten artist sketching over the remnants of a wildfire's dance. Lips here echo as delicate reminders. But it's as though all the mouths have been rendered muted. In the midst of the unusual quietness, an ache lingers. Everything seems to be sinking into an empty space. But I feel the warmth of your hand. I see your face. I feel as if the people on the streets are too far away from each other. It's much like that afternoon and there is an unsaid demand in the air.
The nurse that checks my heart rate doesn't look me in the eyes and neither does my mother because the people who love you are just one overdose away from being strangers. If they hadn't loved me so much, maybe I wouldn't have done it. Maybe.
Love is a strange, treacherous thing. You never know when it wraps around someone like a blanket or pierces into their chest like a dagger. But the intention was the same either way, right? They did the right thing, but what does intention matter when you're burying a corpse and the ground refuses to accept it?
Abandoned buildings stand sentinel to unrealized desires. These buildings carry too much, like our skin - cold but never too much. On some evenings, we learn of the shapes that hang from the ceilings and call it an accident. A terrible accident. These are the only shapes we know.
On some evenings, hope is only a dried crust and it sings hollow melodies. This evening, it makes me want to stare at the white walls a little longer than I usually do while you, on the floor, unravel questions on my palm.
What it means to call the empty spaces too crowded? What it means to sit here trying to paint the pure rage in those eyes? So pure. It needs to be worshipped. What does it mean to collide with your shadow on empty streets? Parallel lines weave whole circles, shadows eclipsing the fatigue in my eyes. I, in surrender, become ashes-ephemeral and unbound.
At this side of the city, silence is a reminder. This evening, I'm not surprised at the dinner table conversations. I'm not surprised when you answer all of my questions.
Mournful eyes of strangers hold a fragile truth. So fragile. It needs to be kept in the corners. It needs to be forgotten about. The moth flies away and I see the smoke from a distant wildfire.
at this side of the city, parallel lines make whole circles.