Ghostly About You

(The Genius of Solitude (1836), 2010)

You walked out that door. I left you before you did me. It was nice meeting you too. Walk away. I think I had my hands in my pockets, I was probably looking down, yes, there's my shoes, they're moving now. The carpet looks like it always does, the Rorschach stain tells me I'm always safe, and then the wooden floor panels tell me I am alone again. The music is mute, the phone is ringing, and I can hear fans running air through a machine. I sit down, without words, I look back. Without thoughts, I look back. You're still there.

There is a calm in the wind, it isn't cold. I think of metal twisting in a hot Australian summer, I think of the faces of millions, melting, with wavy heat waves in the air. I think of a time that doesn't exist, where the people are wearing suits and hats, sunglasses with wings, and studded edges. I think of the world moving by me slow, and slowly, with smoke and smog, flashes lasting longer than frictions, and the buzz and vibration of a mechanical monster. They call this home, they call this place haven.

One by one the steel folds back like banana skin, the core is revealed, and inside there are little ant-size people scurrying appliances and papers into holes. I think madness, I think of it all as chaos. I stand farther back, and I see the shapes of things, and what I see first is not what I see last. A face emerges, made of countless people in movement, beams of metal, of cars and trucks passing by, and concrete and shadow. I looked closer without moving my feet towards this odyssey, and what did I see.

The door closes, a couple of leaves enter, and I don't even notice. The sun is right, there is a sudden gust, and a man trips across the street. You are gone.