The Traveler

A silhouette on the hilltop,
A floating shadow,
A dark cloud guided by a burning cigarette,
The traveler has escaped again,
The traveler is free.

Cracked windows reflecting blackness,
Broken columns being strangled by ivy,
Torn spiderwebs,
The fading footsteps that lead right through them,
The traveler was here.

An abandoned village,
Voices lost,
Still nights,
Suffocating silence,
A trail of cigarette smoke,
The traveler was there to witness the fall.

A hidden creek,
Soggy leaves rotating in pebbled whirlpools,
The lingering echo of the traveler's morbid whistling,
The chase is almost over.
Almost.

Lightening.
The dark clouds,
The spreading stain of blackness on the milk-glass sky.
A lonely wall without a structure,
The forlorn curtains flourishing,
Dancing their death dance with the winter wind.
I see him.
I see the traveler.

The silent chase,
The need to steal his sight,
To make it mine.
Almost there,
An arm's length behind.
The shadow stops,
The burning cigarette flares,
The traveler turns around,
You stare back at yourself,
And like a swift intake of breath,
Comes the drenching rain.