Act 1: Sitting in the Road
I thought you’d come home past midnight as I chewed apart the last few stale crumbs that I had snatched from the refrigerator. It was stark empty now. Now, anyway…
And that was why you had to take an uncanny trip to some all-night store and buy a fair amount until the normal, trusted supermarkets would open.
I closed my eyes. There you were, examining each short aisle in some shady convenience store with your eyes dim and dulled (perhaps to a lighter shade of gray than the clouds).
I stood up wearily and managed to nudge another log into the fireplace. Ravenously gobbling it up, the fire crackled, and instead of the soft, bright result I wanted, it jumped fiercely in the hearth towards the mantelpiece.
I was prepared for some terrible vision to hit me like a car, or some sudden newscast to bring static, then life to the television with something much more grim than usual.
Now, this preparation was more a feeling, a hunch.
Act 2: The Tuesday Wind
You opened the door carrying a grocery bag. Your eyes watched tired, stared weary. Without saying a thing, you started to arrange the contents of the bag into the fridge.
“Everything,” you finally said, quiet. You had wandered in like that Tuesday wind that blows at all the wrong times, day and night, dark and bright.
Whispering around you, I popped a tidbit into my mouth from the fridge and hurried away.
On nights like this, you weren’t to be bothered.
Act 3: Slow
You sat next to me on the couch, yawning every now and then. The hearth blazed wildly, but still kept its serenity at the same time.
“I’m going to sleep. ‘Night,” you mumbled, finally, and drifted off into your room in its thick, dark ice breath.
Finally, sleep.
Act 4: Midnight
I opened my eyes exactly at midnight,
The clock was tickin’ loud.
I heard someone in the other room,
Then among the walls…
I heard someone at the door,
Then knocking through the halls…
And then, so suddenly, so
I found in the doorway
Hollow, hollow so
Your eyes shifting on your body…
Bleeding roses and twisted curtains
Engraved into this velvet dress,
Dragged down this hall
Or none, or even less
To smile over this or that,
To brush away a golden mess
To smile over this or that,
To brush away—
And then it’s endless
And gone
And…
Dead…?
Those eyes still haunt me.