This City Will Leave Me Tonight Because I Am Starting To Look Like the Monsters That Haunt Us

this city will leave me tonight because I am starting to look like the monsters that haunt us.

you stood there motionless, gazing behind me at the wall clock that was stuck at the midnight I decided I didn’t want to be me, anymore.

at any point, or some point afterwards, I’d tell you I’ve changed history.

since we all become statistical half lives of a dying universe, growing into a misunderstanding of myself, is as good as denying my fate.

there are infinite endings in a circle, but I couldn’t count the one that called me a lie. there isn’t much to offer in a condolence when you aren’t sorry for the part of you that died. therefore, I stayed just that, a recollection, regrettable.

If I were you, I’d tell me to torch up the sky where I daydream about the demons nitpicking my servitude to the world. but you haven’t learnt how to look at me. and I wouldn’t pry.

the arms around me are prosaic on the nights I don’t carry sleep to bed. the canvas of truth is always drying on the silhouette of what I once was.

sometimes I resemble me in you, but most days I wonder who I am. and if I were you, you would tell me, I didn’t stay too long to know.

and I’ll let you wander before you realise I am a faint reflection, in a warehouse where you just couldn’t find a place to hide the mirrors away.

and I’d turn to the audience in the room and ask this one last time, what lies beyond us all?

is it our collective self or the mere thought of us merging into one?

or, is it nothing?

or.

but in every version of this reality,

I see them leaving in hordes.

You can find more of Adeena Mansoor’s writing on her Instagram.