In the Gloom of Borrowed Halos

Beneath the cracked mirror of Westlake dusk a shadow-self unfolds its paper wings, not born of clay or storm but of the glare that follows one brighter, louder flame. _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ His visage—carved as if by some unfinished chisel— holds the quiet menace of an empty stage: eyes that wait for the cue, a brow that furrows on command, a mouth practiced in the soft syllables of “presence.” One almost startles, mistaking the stillness for something deeper than the lens. _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ He walks the corridors of borrowed houses, a satellite in careful orbit, drawing light from the larger body’s heat while murmuring of solitude and the HSP’s delicate nervous system. The canvas waits. The app waits. The poem waits—each carefully titled, each carefully shared— yet the true medium remains the proximity to the one whose name opens doors and whose laughter once set a favored painting aflame for the feed. _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ How diligently he arranges the props: the thoughtful pause, the mystic phrase, the claim of magic made real in a city that has seen every costume. Art, he insists, is the pure outflow of the inner mind; yet the outflow seems measured by how closely it trails the larger wake. _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ And still the face remains— a studied intensity, a slight excess of seriousness that the camera mistakes for depth and the passerby, for something almost alarming in its determination to be seen as other than it is. _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ In the end the esoteric truth is simple: the shadow lengthens only when the brighter light is near.