Vachon Imagined

The candle I lit for you flickers in her dungeon of madness. She walks toward it, one arm outstretched toward a mirage of him. She can feel the heat of his back, electrified, a bolt of lightning tangled beneath the skin. The ache, the longing, crashes against the truth: a married man is frozen in time, untouchable, untethered to her world.

Callous to the ordinary rhythms of what she longed to become, she moves beyond the turpentine of people who don’t belong to people, people who don’t belong in clauses. “You’ll love her,” they say, “but she’s a little crazy. You’ll see her, but she’s daunting.” And still, she walks. Toward that candle. Striking a match. Releasing you into oblivion.