(And the nights are still too long sometimes

But life is still too short

So we tend to forget the little things…)

He lights another cigarette

With a hand that almost shakes

And stares at a wall that is

Haunted with the ghosts of

Old photographs.

He turns his head and tries to laugh.

She danced there once.

Beneath a sky of black and white

Her silence now framed in

Some half-forgotten dream

He claims to not remember.

It rained a lot that September.

He walked there once.

Through a forest of hidden regrets

And sepia-toned mists that now linger

Forever in a perpetual silence that

He knows not how to quell.

Probably just as well.

He takes another cigarette

From the crumpled pack that lies

On the table where he spends his days

But this time when he sees that wall

The old man forgets to laugh.

He stares beyond the photographs.