By Caitlin Debellis
I’m sitting in my car,
In the back lot adjacent to the police station and movie theater…
With only 5 stray cars,
And a black cat taking, what could only be assumed to be, its nightly stroll along the old,
faded brown fencing.
The night is cool, clear, and peaceful;
As close to perfection as nature could provide.
The kind where lovers rejoice, and the lonely are quelled as the symphony of seemingly
nothingness soothes the mind and soul.
However, those who are more keen, and far more sensical, know that is not the case.
There is no such thing as silence or peace.
Amongst the deafening glow of street lamps and traffic lights,
the remnants of the sunset still linger in the sky, peeking behind the distant mountains
The glow is no longer yellow, but a gentle mixture of green and blue;
the night soon to claim victory over the day; the mountains consuming the valley below it.
The quiet night is only a clever facade,
as the sound of traffic from neighboring overpasses dips and weaves
through the mostly empty buildings and streets.
If you listen closely, voices of children and adults alike,
families, friends, and lovers,
reverberate between molecules in the air.
You take notice to the holes in the walls,
the gentle aging of the brick and concrete.
Where horses and Model-T’s had once overcome the streets,
and where ladies in lace and large dresses had once gossiped about who, what, and when.
Where the men, dressed in their Sunday best,
once guided their dames amongst the gas-lit lamps,
I am merely just a passerby in the midst of the village, and time, itself.
So, as I sit in my car,
listening to the speeding traffic up above,
and watching this black cat mingle within the cars’ underbellies,
I have come to notice my fatal flaw;
A willingness to fall in love with imperfection.