The city lights blurred as we sped through the night.
The woman behind the wheel, her name Malady,
glanced back with a wink.
“Good taste in drivers, huh?” she chuckled.
I grinned, feeling warmth spread through me.

“Where to?” She asked. “The best bourbon in town, I said
“Thought you might be feeling that way,” she said.
“There’s this great little place I know…”
Her voice trailed off as she started the engine, the car humming to life.
“Let’s go quench that bourbon appetite, shall we?”

We pulled up to a bar unlike any I’d seen.
A crooked, neon sign glowed in the shape of a lopsided melon,
casting a cheerful orange hue on the weathered brick facade.
“The Melon Patch?” I questioned, raising an eyebrow.

“Don’t knock it till you try it,” Malady winked again,
her smile as infectious as the bar’s quirky sign.
“This is where bourbon dreams come true.”
She shut off the engine.
“Consider it a bonus for mentioning good taste.” 

Intrigued, I paid the fare.
Before I could protest, Malady hopped out,
her heels clicking a happy rhythm on the sidewalk.
“One drink,” she declared, throwing an arm
around my shoulder, “on the house.”

The door of the Melon Patch swung open,
revealing a haze of amber light and the sweet,
heady aroma of aged bourbon.
Stepping inside, a warmth,
both literal and welcoming, washed over me.

This, I had a feeling,
was the start of a night I would soon forgive but never forget.

Cosmos felt strangely muted,
vibrant hues of life dulled to a sombre gray,
and memories flicker like dying embers
in the hearth of my soul;
conversations now hung heavy in the air
unsaid, unheard, unread.

Clocks’ silence become an unwelcome companion,
the void echoed with an unbearable hollowness
guilt, a viper with a venomous bite,
coil around my heart;
why wasn’t I there?
How far is faraway?

The flame, rogue and ember
stolen from a forgotten dream,
danced a defiant leap on your palm.
It flickered, not with the golden desperation of a dying star,
but with a mocking, mischievous twist.
It burned for no audience, beholden to no celestial script. 
This was your fire, and its defiance
mirrored the chaos swirling within you.

Sunsets, those glorious displays of surrender,
were an anathema to your spirit.
You craved the perpetual twilight,
the luminal space where shadows stretched long
and the ordinary morphed into the fantastical.
Under the perpetual hum of a half-lit sky, you thrived.

Your acts, cacophony of colour and sound,
weapons against the encroaching tedium of existence.
You juggled luminous spheres that pulsed
with the rhythm of a forgotten language.
You spun tales where clocks melted
and teacups sprouted wings.
Laughter, like startled birds, would erupt from the crowd,
a fleeting symphony in the face of the absurd.

But for all your vibrancy,
an air of melancholy clung to you.
Disarming as your performances might be,
there was a hollowness
that resonated you beneath the surface.
It was the echo of a promise unfulfilled,
a yearning for a connection you couldn’t quite grasp.

The mist, ever-present, swirled around you,
a congregation of lost souls drawn
by the erratic light of your flame.
Faces, etched with the weariness of unfulfilled dreams,
peered out from the swirling vapour.

You recognized them
a failed poet with verses that crumbled to dust,
a once-celebrated painter whose brush now painted only silence,
a young dancer whose steps were lost in the labyrinth of despair.

Her heartstrings
entwined with the echoes
of her past.
She found solace
in abandoned rooms
of the empty building.

Where the silence
spoke volumes
and darkness was
only a companion.

Yet, there was one room
she dared not enter
a room shrouded in darkness,
its door sealed shut
for memories
too painful to confront.

But on a fateful night,
curiosity lured her into
forbidden chamber.
With trembling hands,
she turned the rusted handle,
the hinges groaning in protest
the door creaked open.

Darkness enveloped her
like a suffocating cloak,
swallowing her whole
as she stepped into the abyss.

The air was heavy
with the scent of dust
and decay,
her heart pounded
against her ribcage
like a caged bird
desperate for freedom.

She groped in the darkness,
her fingers brushing against the cold,
rough walls as she ventured
deeper into the unknown.
freedom seemed so farfetched
over the mountain happiness lies.

Suddenly, his foot
collided with something solid
a piano.
Its keys coated in dust,
its strings silent
forgotten.

Trembling fingers,
he traced the contours
of the instrument,
his memories
intertwining
its melodies.

He remembered
the days
his world shattered,
the days he was
locked away
a child in a labyrinth
of darkness.

He remembered
the sound
of his own heartbeat
echoing against the walls,
the taste of fear
lingering on his tongue
as he cried out for salvation.

But salvation never came,
and in the depths of such despair
he found his voice.
a tick in the close of the arm
a kiss of tone
the harmony of delusion’s opera.

He sang to the darkness,
his melodies a beacon
of despair in a sea of
liquid expectation
and the waiting
for the man,
3000 kroner in hand.

Freja wrote a song,
a song, she said,
about the time
she was locked in.

A song about
echoes of her past
the light that guided
her apparition back home.

And as her voice
soared into the night,
it carried with it
a message of despair
message that no matter
how far the light seems,
there is always
something
waiting to be found.

A door perhaps.

In the heart of a bustling city,
where neon lights dance
against the canvas of
the night sky,
exists a place
veiled in shadows.

An old building,
forgotten by time,
walls full of secrets
all whispered by the wind.

Within this relic
lived a woman no name needed,
whose soul resonated
the melancholy melodies
of the forgotten.

The cafe buzzed with conversation,
a cacophony of laughter,
clinking coffee cups;
still her shadow was cloaked in the corner
on the other side of the street.

Huddled in dim shades,
she felt the warmth of
her memories slip away;
they did little to dispel the chill
that settled around her soul.

Her worn idleness lay forgotten,
the words blurring into
an incomprehensible mess;
families sharing plates of pastries,
friends divide flavours.

Her gaze drifted to a new red spot
bobbing among many others in her arm,
a stark contrast to the joyous chatter cross the road.
It seemed to mock her,
a symbol of  forbidden celebration.

A reminder of her isolation,
sight of escaped sighs,
barely audible over murky delusions;
Yet, amidst all the solitude,
a flicker of defiance.

In the quiet act of creation,
she found a solace,
a connection,
a way to belong,
even in her red spot solitude.

Carina was never that kind of gal,
never to weep large and
never do in public.
So it took everybody aback
when flabby tears fell everywhere
over that queer situation.

In the first place,
Carina had never had it good.
She had never made money.
She had never had wealth.
She had never seen new hairstyle
or mirror her lipstick colours.

She had never before
had a chance to live
like a slick-magazine mannequin,
with time to play tennis,
ride and have cool butter sandwiches
but then she felt it once.

There was a swimming pool,
near the place she once lived,
ten steps away from
the apartment door.
A borrowed sofa in a led life,
two random contacts and a grief.

Of course, a private pool,
which was fine with Carina,
cause most of the people she knew
didn’t even have the chance to see a pool.
She could sit in the common outing and watch
people drink their martinis and milk.

Naturally, she could not rate all this,
nor be part, just put up as long it lasted.
Like the old man used to say,
life is full of seconds,
rarely some of them happy.
There is no happiness for us poor.

Carina lived a life sore and she
would have gone earlier to sleep
but this dream was a swimming pool alive
and kept her for day and the next
and the next till the day Carina slept for good,
herself swimming in a pool of blood.

You see son,
passageways of days
go through dark doubts
and confusion over
personal conflicts.

You see son
there are no awards,
no guidelines,
no security in life,
only intimidations.

You see son,
the ride is long
in its meaninglessness
and unbeaten through
its thorny clearance.

You see son
frustrations curse the course
and loss the broken thoughts,
the temptations,
the terrible negations.  

You see son,
the time of divinity,
the guillotine of finality
the moment to face
actuality never comes.

You see son
there is no morality
to the fact that
you just float away
in a stream never clean.

You see son
time in the end
runs out of
wavers and doubt,
an obstruction of choice,
while death awaits.