little fires, tiny lights

The night has settled, heavy cream in bitter coffee, sweet with indifferent stars. The sky is tattered flags and minor skirmishes, flecked with ancient light, diffuse with mood and smoke. The sky is all encore and curtain call, something granted these slivers of pleasure, but hardly the show. The sway of shadows, the creeping push and draw of passing headlights, the conspiracies of street bound commerce-- these are the only mysteries that bother to linger. Twitchy human fallibility where I would have fables. The clamor of a warming trend where I would have conflagrations and infernos.

The heart staggers here and there. It complains of its fate while robbed of breath and romance. Another night without a dose of passion, another night without a measure of longing. When we know ourselves by our appetites, what confusion when we cease to want. A cat paces the eaves above me, an unseen owl screeches its destination for reasons I do not gather, and will never really know. Smoke curls from my lip, and I cough predictably, for reasons I understand, with motive as obscure as any appeal to sanity. Little fires, tiny lights.

Absently I fondle the cheap plastic lighter. Something smooth and familiar to puzzle out, an impulse found in a pocket. It could have been keys or pocket knife, or even the mini-Maglight I reserve for moments of shock and awe or when the darkness bests me. I grind the flint with thumb-stroke after thumb-stroke, feel the plastic warm to the entreaties of my touch. Another thing to notice, another thing to grip. Another thing touching this thing I always knew I would become: a transient ache engulfed by shadows. A presence shambling from scene to scene, staring endlessly, always ready to burn.