Outcast

Wandering the streets, the lamps guide me on further a few steps at a time.
The clouds close in on the night shutting out the stars, nobody's up to admire them anyway.
With each step the cold wins a bit more of my flesh as it bites through to the layers of my clothes.
The snow steadily drifts drifts down on this dank world that I feel I've invaded, trespassed.
Snow builds up as the muffled sounds of my steps give way to the crunching of ice on the souls of my shoes.

I glare into the darkness, shadows play tricks on my eyes.
Paranoia gives way to my own insecurities, my own superstitions,
I laugh at myself hesitantly.
Still, the darkness of the town smells putrid, as would a garbage pale left full for to many days in a hot kitchen.
Motionless, silent, unnerving, the streets see through me, through my false bravado exposing me for who I am, a tourist.

Walking these streets, these streets of silence, of indifference. I feel what is out of place, what is not how it should be. A nagging prick in the back of my neck tells me I'm not welcome here, I shouldn't be here.
It would be better if I left now, now from the place I don't belong.

My heart beats through my chest, strong, powerful, wanting. I begin to run with purpose, running away from my fears, my fears of who I really am, the secrets still hidden in the shadows of the late night streets, hidden by the ghosts of those that pry into my very self seeing the fool within.
I run until my feet no longer touch the snow, a snow that blankets old leaves concealing a carpet long worn out by time.

Snow accumilates on my shoulders as it cascades down from my hat, minature avalanches as I turn my head.
I'd stopped running without realizing it, my mind now focussed on things more distant, more out of reach, more deeply entrenched in my soul. Thoughts drift off to a far away place incomprehensibly beyond my grasp.

Standing among the trees, just out away from the intruding lights of the house I strain to peer into the window.
A woman is there, the keeper of all that I am. A gaudian of my love, my devotion, my being.
This is as close as I get to the woman of my dreams, the woman who feels so close to me but is forever to far. I will stand here all my life watching, waiting, longing. I will wander these cold dark streets where I am vulnerable alone and without purpose, this is my purgatory,
this is my hell.