PAST VAPOR

Outside
The window
her time line
Melts.

Mist
Appears
Startling. A fragment. Illusion?

She is chimera.
Bouncing.

My eyes close.
Were they my eyes?
Hers?

Mine open.
She appears.
I appear.
She leaves.
I leave.
She re-appears.
I disappear.

Who?
When?
Where?
Why?
What?
The usual.

I wake up.
Outside. Nothing.
Within me HER mist is still there.
Grasping. Screaming. I fall.
The floor is hard.

Days later.
They douse my face with water.
I am still above the bar.

Within the room.

Yet, outside.
Waves crash.
More mist.
Louder still.
Open the window.

Ahhhh! My heart.
She is...almost...touching...feeling...
Gone.

Laughter.
The locals below.
A puff of smoke. Through the crack.

Years later.
Still smoking.

She was there.
Before.
Now?
A tinted nail.
Where?
When?
Her
Outside; gone.
No mist now.

At the bar, the ocean crashes.
The bartender screams: "Closing time!"
Pretty men. Pretty women.
Goodbye.

All is ugly.
She is ugly.
I am ugly.
Phosphorescent lights make life ugly.
Chimera gone.

Outside the bar.
All gone now.
Never was?

Sleep.
Endless sleep.

Tomorrow.

I awake to the sound of my own hollow laugh.
A fool's errand?
Never to return.
Wolfe said it.


Mist.
All is mist.
Nothing is mist.

She and I...never return.

All is mist.
She is mist.
I am mist.
Time is mist.
Mist is mist.
Where to go?

Home.

Downstairs. At the bar.
I pay.
Never to return.

Upon returning home.
My wife.
Forgives.