The trigger can be anything,

it doesn't have to make sense.

It's easier if the logic's lacking

disconnected, impersonal, sterile, set.

A cup of espresso

as I walked the streets entwined,

the sun dazzling each and every member

of my own parade.

The way the stones themselves seemed to glow,

or in the rain, my pair of pumps

soaked through, tapping along,

just daring to skip and dance ahead

in the euphoric chorus of the drops.

Maybe I took a wrong turn.

Somehow I got to here from there

And now I'm gone too,

ephemeral like the wind

or the turning tide.

Other faces on the street are hard

or else they're gone, and the walls

rising up on either side block

the sun, and the rain,

the ceiling of this tunnel is distant darkness,

half at once arrived.

I turn, in circle, looking for the track,

back to light, back to joy,

back to the darkness of my twin embrace.

I want to run, to find escape

But am stopped for fear of further loss

if I go forward,

or if I fight back.

I stand, I stay, frustrated, frozen.

Wanting to get away, to tear my skin

to not be the cowering weak me anymore.

A tear threatens to flood the canyon in my cheek -

I want to let if fall. I want to stop it.

Tears are a cry for attention,

for mercy or for pity just to be denied.

All alone, I will not beg,

not from my better half

who has abandoned me two face

this oncoming darkness of my own.

I must batten down the hatches

if I want to make it through this turmoil

in more than one piece.

The only thing worse than lasting it out

is to fight through

and find everything else swept away.

There is no goal, no finish line.

Instead, one step then two.

I must believe something else will come

when faith is gone.

A bird sounds nearby, in mocking tones until

the sun, breaks through one brilliant arm

and everything is right again.

I turn my face to the warmth, the light

and follow it blindly, now certain

that it will last forever too.

There was never an end in sight.