Black wool coats and last year's dresses and faces hide a gallery of
eyes that immerse me as I walking onto a subway car. I see
people who visit with those close to them, and they say, "how's it
going" and "good bye" and they take meaning in these words as they are
still stirred by the sounds of synthpop on a pressed CD or harvested
directly from digitized ether.  I remember my world is old, and my
song is played on an broken down gramophone on a warped record with the
grooves worn away, pieces of vinyl ablated by timeless passes of a
tired needle.  My world is one where I don't say "good bye" when
passing through the nostalgia of losing one ephemeral to memory, but
instead "so long, old friend" because it is laden with with the
sadness of a world where nothing lasts long and sunsets are beautiful
for their brevity and afterwards comes empty night and stars amidst
the clouds. I turn to go, through a door, and those around me wonder
why my eyes burn with such weariness, or perhaps they see the
threshold of weeping. For when I pass through the portal, I don't go
to the empty hall, but to chambers of impossible stairs, climbing
through strata which few have seen and fewer still see again.