Dusk falls a little earlier these days. the nights grow a little colder, a little longer. i find myself alone more often these days. it doesn't matter if i'm walking alone, or if i'm with him. or even if i'm in a room crowded with the company of others. for loneliness is a state of mind, a room without windows and doors.
it's a place you simply wake up in. the dark bourbon walls. the ashen concrete floors. the cold, crisp, yet stale air. many fall into despair upon no exit in sight. but not me. this is a familiar place. i've been here before. and you must simply wait it out.
There he was, slumped down amid the spent cigarettes of casual conversations strewn across the cold concrete. the last of their lives spent waning out in the cold - petering, puttering until the last glow of warmth and hope gradually fades into the bleak darkness.
He light another up. then look at them. for a moment, he thinks they look forlorn. he thinks of the hundreds of leaves dried inside. the tanned hands who plucked the leaves from the days they sprang from branches. the days they reached out towards the warmth of the sun, dreaming of days when they might become plants on their own - replete with flowers, buds, and leaves of their own.
certainly they did not imagine a life rolled in a thin sheet of plain white paper, waiting to be smelt into elements of carbon and ash. were their sun-filled dreams still cured inside them. did these pipe dreams sublimate themselves into feelings of the sanguine and sublime? the happy leaf? the magic leaf?
***
He is traveling between worlds when i find him. he is redolent of bourbon and cigarettes, lying in bed, sojourning planar dimensions where the meta meets the physical. I nestles myself into my nook where his shoulder meets his arm. I whispers inaudible words into his ear when he is asleep, spilling secrets of sorrow and of pain.
He was not able to respond. i realize that he can't respond. i realize that he is observing himself. some call this lucid dreaming, but he can't bring himself close enough to make out what i am saying with any clarity.
then he realize i am upset. he can tell when i am unhappy. and suddenly, he feel my tears come trickling down his arm. I never look at him. I feel cold. he is alone. i am alone.
yet, I continues to cling on, desperately trying to console my soul with some kind, any kind of warmth.
gradually, my breathing slows. the tears dry. and I continue to cling, vainly clinging to the vestiges of what we didn't have, what we wouldn't have. but, at least we still had that, right? at least we still have that.
because now, the night is a little colder, a little longer. and dusk just falls a little earlier.
