Snow

The city is everything - anger, silence, lights, memory. Mistakes forgotten. Bearded men sleep in tangled sheets, their breath but scattered clouds which fill the enclaves of abandoned shops. Although most are young their faces are painted in shadowed streaks, like paths taken long ago but forever unfinished; each led them here: to broken cement. And the dreams they left behind settle into cold brick, the cracks between dried mortar, like the life you tried to hold together.

When the rooftop silhouettes turn cold, fade into a canvas of imagination, and the smell of charcoal turns to that of gas station cigarettes, you fold your hands - are they yours? - around ripped cloth, hang it over slouched shoulders. You wait. Every night, you wait. It started without your consent; you hate concern. Concern is what brought you here, what carved the paths which frame your face.

But it's coming on winter now and, besides, you feel no obligation toward sleep. What has sleep ever given you?

Here, the girl, her body made of water. At the corner of the flower shop, fear crawls from her lips even in the dusky light. You close your eyes, you are asleep. You know what she is afraid of. As she passes her heels click against the sidewalk; you can hear the awkwardness of this life, this life they all want so desperately.

Do you? Did you?

What does it matter, this was so long ago.

Now the water has been pulled away by an unforgiving tide, and you are but the salt left to dry on an old wooden dock.

You never dream, but tonight you are a little boy again, you are beside your first love, and she is water too. Restless water, river water. This is why you left; you were still, and contemplative, and instead of falling into the current you clawed at the bank, scraped your knees on the rocks. Now she changes before you, her eyes grow light and her hair coils around her neck in auburn waves. She stands up, and curls her ruby-painted toes into the grass, where powder has stained the green blades a haunting, milky white. The white pulses through your veins again, and you reach to touch her face. You are the stain. And with this, you wake, and snowflakes as soft as cotton lick your skin.

Laughter, such an unfamiliar feeling. Is it yours?