Page 50 - 2019 Priory MUSE Magazine

The caustic vapors still rising from the drained bottles on the coffee table The smoke trailing from the thin white stick between his lips Those indelible times of youth, times of
innocence, days gone bye. And her presence still felt, ifnot colder and emptier than
Because that couldn’t be me, right? Right? That isn’t for me to say,
And I turn my head, direct my attention elsewhere, focus inwards Like the cold barrel of an unfair trial bearing down on your very soul A truth held self-evident, like death and taxes, like the rights of man,
Piercing the ears with the dull thud of monotony, the psychological Like the last moments offreedom before the steel bars slam down Boldly going where no man ever hoped to be left to his own devices Gangrene seeping its way into the furthest reaches of the known microcosm,
Begins to drown out the noise in the street and my blood boils But it’s eleven and the sun is up and the noise in my head
Leaving understaffed the quaint little townhouse from whence I came As my thoughts reach a fever pitch and my legs move themselves,
Dingy, inexpensive, homey stolovaya, the smells of beet stew An uneventful journey, an anxious wait outside the small, Out the door, hurtling into the null embrace of the stratosphere And dry prepackaged bread and cheap beer wafting
The cracked, marred, trodden-under-foot sidewalk And then, as ifa mirage, a disheveled angel drifting across
With my rising heart beat, everyone else melting away into the background Towards my unworthy pupils, her narrowing distance even
Rays back at my lackluster tray, finished in a hurry The brushed nickel tables reflecting scratched, tarnished Unless you’re a local, in which case, you’re too drunk to care
As you can’t nervously shoot the breeze and feed yourself
A shallow, artificial lake with the most beautiful reflection I’ve ever seen And then a directionless blur with colors and emotions and Murky water with fine, perfectly round grains of sand lapping at the concrete shore And the trees staring back at me with their hollow, lovely blue eyes and the lukewarm,
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