Apparition

Apparition


All these years, psychological time still does not accelerate.
My hours are as long as any child’s, caged or free.
These rainy nights, street life loses charm, denizens sparse,
hidden.  Pickings thin, I quell my hunger in wait of the
right opportunity, because I can.  I obey no clock but my
own eternity.
My mind is practiced in self-distraction.  I luxuriate in
falling water, the cleanness it imparts.  Soft impressionist
romance of streetlight glow through wet insistence let’s
me believe I am walking through a fantasy.  Any potent image
could appear.  I might find, realize myself to be in any era of
my history, transported by a dark elemental spell.
Of course time does not play these fancy tricks for me.
Only my impossible mind transports through memories,
subliminal hallucinations.  I have been playing these games
for so long they become like friendly ghosts, itinerant
companions.
Urban birds reiterate their forest songs, perhaps discussing
weather and food.  I teleport to a high building top and own
the city below.
Stench of wet garbage, caked soot, fowl excrement, does not
negate freshness of open sky, drenching condensation.
Strangely, from way up here, I feel the call of despair so
strongly I am drawn to a window several stories down.
Peering in I surprise a middle-aged man contemplating
a revolver.  As he stares at this sudden apparition, as I
must appear to him, I simply ask that he invite me in.
Whether my hypnotic suggestion or shocked compliance,
he accepts my offer with quizzical invitation.
Though I drip a small puddle onto the floor on which
I stand, I did not bring in the water that streams from
his eyes.  Or perhaps my surreal presence has triggered
permission for this release.
I see no reason we can not be of mutual aid.  It is far late
into this night.  I am still unfed and aware of hunger.
He tries to explain that his life is cruelly over, while time
unreasonably continues.  I am considerate; I do not laugh.
Perhaps he believes me a symptom of his lapse beyond sanity.
I have over an hour until dawn’s boundary.  With sincere
sympathy, I give him all the time he needs for explanation,
to rationalize away his resistance.  I listen.  I do not advise
or sway.  I do at last suggest our secret trade, the end to
his pain, the continuance of my shameful trail.
Perhaps he told himself that none of this was real, that
he would awaken with new options.
Perhaps he simply released into acceptance, a last pleasure,
a peaceful end to unwanted time.