Only afterwards, in the stillness, does the voice speak. Only in silence do I hear it. Reserved for those who stay behind and walk apart, for those with little relevance, its instructions come in the flicker of light through clouds, through cast shadows and scraps of poetry. 

Without noticing, I have finally entered the Afterwards. Permanently off the table, I find abandonment congenial. In this perfect retreat I care nothing for what has gone before. 

No emotional charge emanates from considering that wretched melodrama of the past. The panicky lust, the lying, cheating, game playing nature of high stakes relationships and money. Women thin as knife blades, millionaires snorting coke. At the time I thought of my proximity as educational. And now it's just a figment of my imagination.

The Strange Angel

Is death the voice I hear calling so seductively? She sings like a Phoenix of immolations and renewal. Yes, then, let us accept it.  The Afterwards is a morgue of sorts. But I might play here for a while.