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