THERE was nothing alluring
about crackling rays
that could shift his own apathy
toward the old filled with wishful,
wistful thinking,
inebriated with regret,
cramming their desires
on the day of terminus.
He hated the room for its tiring stench
of recycled vows and cheap theatrics.
He finished his drink but lit again a cigarette,
still in the vice grip of flame
refusing to be extinguished,
yet in transit of extinction,
for old habits don’t die
easily as years do.
Josef Brian M. Ramil
