the last man

If you are not aware of what to look for you will invariably miss it. It happens in an instant. Like the dilation of a pupil upon stepping into the sunlight. Like a housefly strumming it's hind legs together in neuron-quick anticipation before digging into a hot meal of fresh shit. It will happen and unless you are lucent, unless you are coherent... unless you are sober... you may miss it. A fragment of time, frozen. And sometimes you will find that you have the ability to watch. You will have the ability to walk around this paused, flickering image of you, and her - and underneath it, and in-between it - and you will be able to analyze the actions and thoughts and emotions unfolding around you. Analyze and control.

And sometimes you will let it pass you by. Brainwaves junk sluggish and eyes brimming with whiskey and red with the hint of long-dried tears. You are fast asleep, locked between ebony thighs, wrapped in whore scent as soft adulations and false promises caress you like a sleeping babe. Manicured nails run through your scalp offering salvation and scratching away what seems like years of worry - and the vessel which carries you to Xibalba races thru the cosmos. The world you once knew disappears at your feet slipping into lapping darkness.

I stand under the canopy watching the snow fall. I inhale my cigarette and then close my thoughts only listening to the soft "shhhh" of the wind and swirling flakes which indiscernibly speak an old language known only to ancient man and white owls. I realize it is over between us R___. I have made my decision. And I am impotent to act.