I stare out into the night-drenched countryside beyond the train window

But there is no world to be seen.

All is gone, like the hopes of youth.

The black pool of glass stares back at me with my own eyes

A ghostly reflection of my own cursed visage

Bathed in the golden light of fluorescent strips from decades past

Like the holy aura of a lauded saint

Effervescent before the sins of man.

Those eyes accuse me of a wasted life

And I accuse them of dreams outside my reach

While darkness mediates between us.

Our silent complaints are lost to the void

Like the lives of men in the choking night.

Then, the birth of a cosmos in a thousand lights

As stars of humanity cast away the other me

Scouring my soul of reflection

And leaving me to face the tides of reality alone.