Time famine

You're probably married, maybe a kid
or two. Not very shy.
Your eyes transfixed
upon me, cutting
the distance into atoms.

It's 3am and I am walking home, heels
in my left hand, hair reeking of
smoke. They really should stop letting
people smoke at bars but. That,
too, feels like home.

As does the asphalt under my
toes, still warm from a
periwinkle sun.

As do the steel street lamps, the
stray cats.
Constants in the dying
town where I was born, the
only place where
I know how to find peace.
And I’m leaving tomorrow.

You're on your balcony, looking down
at me, a total stranger.
I gaze at you. My feet sink into the warm ground.
We say nothing.
Your cigarette burns your shirt.
You let it burn.

I am a theorist of beginnings.

You’re probably 25,
got your bachelor's in the capital.
Didn't like the city much, met a girl.
Came back here.

I'm barely 22, still
in transit.

An anxious engineer of endings.

In this extended fraction of a moment,
we are each other's torture, the lives
we won't get to live.

Beyond this second, bent like
a cat's spine,
the distance extends to infinity.

A woman's voice calls
your name. You go back inside.

I walk back home.

Ruse, Bulgaria -- Boston, MA