a girl on a bench

the children at the park scream until dusk falls, a reminder that she's still alive outside the realms of these four walls. 
oh! - she frets, in a scurry. time for her nightly walk, before the sun melts into the trees, she brushes her hair back and wipes her face in the sink. it's that time of day when the outside world comes in - the one time the sun brushes the skin of the humble computer folk who wilts away day after day. i must go outside - an acknowledgment of a reality that she does not live within. she slips off her pajamas for a fresh pair of sweats, tosses off her slippers, and steps into her sneakers next, set beside the door, waiting for her from yesterday, from the last time she left, from her routine that repeats, she always knows what happens next - yet the weather always takes her by surprise, widens her eyes - this is not what it looked like from the inside. 

she walks the streets with grey in her eyes, which cast deep shadows below and inward. each wisp of her fringe splays in a different direction, gathering into pointed ends, casting shade. her gaze holds nothing, her soul, empty, which allows her disposition to bounce down the street with what could seem like causal confidence - carefree. and she was - carefree, that is. because she was empty. the sorrows of yesterday haunt the sorrows of tomorrow, the sorrows of today - the sorrow of any effort at all - does everything lead to sorrow?
maybe, she thought, maybe... 

nevertheless, she continues, dragging her corpse around the street corners, day by day - walking, they call it - until it leads back to her front door.

-gabina