The moon hangs out above your alley. The night air holds its jaw as I vault the fence and saunter my way across the street, trying to look like I'm not running and never playing catchup. Scattered seeds and breadcrumbs leave the blackbirds scrambling through traffic. Gravel voices sing hymns to the downtrodden inside my ears, every ringtone blasting the chill evening with the song of another lost chance. Every text message a paean to grasping and reaching and always being a step away, an obstacle between you, distance or time or things that cannot fit into your spreadsheets and word processing .txt files, nor .doc either. Every crowd is a canvas to search for eyes looking back at me, for ears listening to me, for the laughter that I struggle to hold in my brain. The train's doors open and accept me in their whooshing embrace and I wish to become a stuck in time paradox polaroid, compressed and detonated from the inside out. I want my eyes to close and when they open, I don't remember who I am any more. I don't just want to forget who I am. I just want to have never been.

Photo - S
Words - S