Disappear

Porcelain contains splashed water and forms rigid hand-holds--sterile and white and non-judgemental. The overhead fan buzzes oddly like a lopsided hula-hoop in a tornado, and it stirs tension around my jaw and neck like stereophonic crickets, like erratic firecrackers, like a constantly backfiring automobile, like the pigeons on the ledge outside my hostel window in Victoria Station. These pigeons cooed strangely, frightfully; all night I would almost fall into the comforter of sleep when a garbled, desperate bleat would piece the gentle cover of night and I would involuntarily twitch in nervous, curious fear in a foreign room and unfamiliar bed.
The lavatory's overhead bulb feels hot against my feverish skin and paints my visage pasty and unwell in the dirty mirror framed before my searching, concerned eyes. I splash more water on my face, on the back of my heated, knoted neck, dripping, regaining focus amid swirling feelings...swooning into the grip of actuality, of temperature and blood pressure and breathing regulation, grasping inside that inpenetrable staring reflection the mirror presents as the extent of myself.
Next came the paper towel scrubbing, then the flush of the commode, followed by a couple of raspy coughs-the door handle-the light switch; the re-entry into the convenience store/the bar/the dark hallway/the parking lot of the nature trails/the pizza joint/the public transportation hub/the stranger's house...I smile and blink and head directly to the nearest exit for a cigarette of mediation and integration.
My heart beats, my brain continues, my discovery process crunches sensory information now that I've become numb to that hole bleeding me softly inside. I would clutch my guts like a bullet wound if I had a center point of pain; instead my being arbirtrary longs for the wholesome warmth missing from my present days; I disengage everything from my presence and participation. I know, I comprehend my unhinging. I absorb the distance within, encasing me inside of broken reflections of unrewinding captures of my past.
The air outside is frosty, clean. The streets have become scarce and my headlights project beams like illuminated echoes in the hovering surround of black. Shadows depart, coldness clutches, and my eyes no longer shine when I disappear.