he paints on industrial black a faded city
with thin, crooked alleys and tilted buildings,
imagines the cigarette smoke numb on his tongue and
in the back of his throat;
he holds his breaths long enough to
choke--

he's careful about each brush stroke,
and layers the acrylic so that the colors
mix together where they meet,
swirls together and seems more of a haze
than the yellow lights of rusting
streetlamps.

in the end he swirls the colors on the
palette together, leaves dark brown strokes over
the city;
imagines life in the drawing,
of half-smoked cigarettes and old love stories told
over pink martinis and a smoldering fireplace--
he dabs the thick brown paint and smiles at
the swirled streaks of color that
didn't mix
like fireplaces and bedtime stories and
long lost dreams.

not with reality.

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