forced perspective

It isn't that I lost track of time, the clock still buried somewhere in the sand, something always burning bright. Time just left me, sitting there, staring into the street. Night snug and sleepless, tucked in every corner tight. The smoke curling away, that lasting legacy. Lonely hazel eyes, a look of hungry intent, an air of unsettling recklessness. Those, and a name left to gather dust and sin.

It isn't that I burned, the fire simply slipped through my fingers. It fell away, drawing everything so intimately closer. A drizzling of untold ache, the knowing that things will always change when you learn them. The blood and ghost that fullest mixture of fool and suspect strength, that testing of each touch by clinging. The flame unable to do anything but consume.

So much more the altitude than that rate of change. So much more the soaring edge of every fall. Seeing you slow as you eclipse the distance, that thumb nail scale too real for the knowledge of your leaving. Seeing you dwindle as you become everything left. That taste of smoke that implies such burning. That flavor of linger you left on these lips.