Ceiling Lights

After it snows you like to go out after ten

And walk the residential streets of your adolescent neighbourhood.

In the sharp softness of silent pavement

overthinking likens more to introspection

then neuroses.

You remember what it was like to be scared of the dark

sampling sobriety like liquor

but you never get lost. The brightness comes and

you reflect more than you’d like on the ceiling lights

of every passing house.

The mother under the dome-lighted ceiling fan

the CEO sipping whiskey under the dripping chandelier

the twins under round child-proofed table lamps

And you. In the dark.

You watch lives like an addict

Why do they have an IV pole? Is that a new couch in the window?

You’re a stalker for normality. You want gabled windows

brick walls and twinkling lights in January.

How they cut through the cold like a strange hope

like the wind that cuts through your coat zipper

insistent, begging to be noticed

but something for you to ignore.

Another one of your fleeting fallacies

as you turn away,

an exterior lighting eclipse,

and keep walking.

By Lucy Farcnik