searching

I was looking for you, after the rains came, searching for you in the mist, a cool night in the early hours of the morning. No one knew what year it was. No one cared. You had a smoke somewhere with a stranger, you stood high and carelessly tall. All I knew was it was Fall and some day I will stop searching. I did not know what day it was, in the middle of the night, the leaves were still on the trees where they could play with the light and bend to make shadows on the streets below. I was caught inside a maple, walking with a staple in my stomach. I don't know how it got there, but I had worked in an office too long. There would be no children. The roosters started out from the backs of their skinny throats, it was never too early. I thought I was awake, but when I woke up I realized I was not awake before, and I wondered if I could wake up from this. Life would be easy on your own. No one knew the time. Neither did I. The stranger, he didn't know a goddam thing, he didn't know anything at all. The day I stop searching is the day I die. Hell. Everybody knows that.