feast

„will you tell me your name?“ you asked, suddenly shy. finally satisfied we lay there, hot and out of breath. we hadn´t spoken a single word since our eyes had locked for the first time at the bar, many hours ago. me with a black feather mask and hardly any black fabric covering the rest of me, you with little horns on your forehead, yellowish-green lenses and elaborately braided hair down to your waist.

i´m sitting in the garden, smoking. naked. it´s that time of year when everyone wouldn´t stop complaining about the heat, while i am finally reaching  a level of true comfort. it makes me giddy, being able to be naked outside, even at night. love it while it lasts. ever so slowly, the sky to the east is paling and changing its colors, while on the other side of the horizon the almost full moon still illuminates the dark of night. the birds greet the day like they always do. as if nothing had happened.

instead of talking, we had played a deliciously slow hunting game, both predator and prey at the same time. circling. observing. holding each others gaze from a distance. sniffing each other out while dancing amidst a small group of fairy folk. coming close, almost touching, then backing off pretending nothing had happened. waiting for the right moment to strike.

have the tips of my cigarettes always sizzled that way when i took a pull? i hear that for the first time. my senses seem to be sharpened, every sound touches my ear with an unusual clarity and beauty. i can even hear the silence beneath the sounds. there is a vast stillness inside me, in spite of the ripples i feel running through me, through my very being. sometimes, after nights like this, i wonder how it can be that everything else is just the way it was: the sun rises. the birds sing. the grass grows. people wake up and go about their usual business. as if nothing had happened.

contemplating that i almost didn´t go ...