Empty City

Streets ring hollow.

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Millions of lights scattered throughout town. I feel that I am the only eyes to see them.

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There is the buzzing of the still-awake machines.  Diminuendo.

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I am here, as you are here.

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I don't remember where here is.  I don't remember when I got here nor how.  Perhaps you can tell me.

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Was it always so cold here?  Maybe I should shut the windows.  No, I won't move.  Inside, it is too dark, too quiet.

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I would say it is silent, if silence were a fact. But if I sit real still, hold my breath, I can hear the low drone of blood slipping in my veins.  Sluggish.  The higher pitch of the nervous system firing sounds thin. Incessant.  Insane.

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There was a girl.  She was here with me until you took her away.  She said your light shone brighter away from the city. I think she took your light into herself, reflecting it into the city. For her, the machines gleamed and sang much brighter than they do now.  Crescendo.

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She has no interest in an empty city.  Big red ants crawl over her blanket at night, and a giant leaf curls above her head, to you, the cold, pale moon.

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I am neither a Clytemnestra nor of Pietà.

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But I don't know that I'd love you so much if I weren't coerced. More than half of my body made of water; no wonder you pull me along. No wonder you have pulled her along.

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Watermelons and strawberries are about 90% or more water—the Earth's sweetest, yours.

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I couldn't call myself sweet.

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But I can call you greedy.

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Yes, I think you want it all.

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In the distance, there is a phone ringing in my empty city.  No one answers. Not for days. 

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These things pass.  Machines rust.  My body will one day shut down.  Silence crawling closer to fact.

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 Tap tap tapping of a keyboard.

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 Hum.