Coming out of the last
film screening, the empty

mall looks like an abandoned
cruise ship. There's the lingering

sense of brief occupancy, in the
same way plastic toys are lodged

in the sandbox after parents
have fetched their children.

The shops are dim, empty.
They're on break now, preparing

for next morning's
language of want.

Glass doors are locked.
Objects, once for sale,

are inacquirable. Price tags
are sheltered in the quiet

specter of dark.
How I do leave this.

Where is the exit.
I need a way out.

Is there anybody out there.
Someone to guide me.

Look around. Some few hover.
There are people still here.

A man at the snack bar
closing up shop.

Laborers downstairs, fixing
tiled floors.  

The guards. And their
transceivers humming gargled

whispers. And me, a spectator
of the way things are after

everyone's gone. I am built
like this, I think. The after

hours, the empty. These feel
holy to anyone who wanders

around vacancies. Hoping to
discover a place inside the place.

A field trip during midnight when
loneliness doesn't have anyone it

can flirt with, so it eats its own
body and desires itself.

In all this emptiness, I look
for something small. A human,

seeing me, sensing I'm lost,
and coaxing me toward a

narrow exit and out into the
open world, where I'm even

smaller than before. Outside,
I think of inside. The massiveness.

And the people still in it,
bracing themselves for another

12 hours
of this tomorrow.