an Evil Hour

The warm fog lay thick around the suburban construction, made the black, quiet night ominous and mysterious. We took the last train home and I sat alone on the subway in false lashes with masquerade gear in my bag, tulle and lace spilling out of it, but the light in the subway is garish and casts such a hard light on the drunk, tired faces within. We all look away and pretend not to see others, to not risk seeing ourselves.

I'm going for a walk, he said, though the night was dark and the hour of the wolf was near. I need to see the ocean. In my mind, I saw the water black ahead and endless, the wind whipping across cliffs and through the pines, cold, vicious, calming. A therapist once told me to picture a place where I could be at peace, to stand there, imagine the moment; it was always the sea, always far enough out that the wind would catch my hair, beat at my skin, drown out the Everything Else.

Stockholm was a monsoon today.

The floods that run in streams down the street,
are nothing like the sea at all.