off guard. electricity.
The people next door are burning candles again.
Vine shaped shadows stretch across the roof of their twenty-second story penthouse. From your neighboring nineteenth floor studio, the flames look like lightning bugs.
You remember when you lit candles in the living room and she was glowing shades of copper and sap. You were far away from everything then.
She was never close again.
A silhouette twirls through the garden of honey flickers warming the night. You wonder if they’re moving toward or away from someone. You habitually do both, simultaneously.
It’s caused problems in the past.
You turn from the dancing black patterns to the city skyline. You are very successful. You live in an amazing apartment with a 24-hour doorman and first-class fitness center. You have cocktails on Fridays and play golf at least once a month, regardless if a flight’s involved or not.
The memories are most dangerous depending on how vivid you feel. She was the only one to see what happens in private after too many performances.
What happens when you fall over.
The lights you’re watching go out and you sit up straighter as if better posture can bring back what has retired to darkness. Like posing more upward will somehow summon an extinguished idea.
You’re uncertain if you should wait for them to light another round of wax.
You’re wondering if you should turn the lights on instead.