My grooved rubber soles smacked against the small puddles of collected rainwater. My coat shrugged off the sky's assault and led the comrades to their minuscule oceans underfoot. In these short moments, no one ever comprehends their importance.
Like how you could feel like a young god by merely defying nature.

I am taking it slowly, walking at a precise pace.
No one willingly suffers the wrath of storms, so I am the only one walking along this old, dark street. My worldview is smeared with a gloaming navy and sometimes with a bright warm white from the intermittent light poles. I prefer neither shadows nor light. You can hide in either if you try.

My intuition guides me through these paths that have been my past; I have walked them a million times.
Now is the last time.

I can feel myself getting closer, so I start glancing at the engraved numbers on the brick buildings that align with my right like a wall.

The storm seems angry with me. The clouds darken and seethe with rage. The winds howl with unrelenting grief. Some drops hit me in the face, but I have suffered worse over the years.

Wet and cold: I am running by this adrenaline-fueled fire in my chest.

I soon make it to those immortalized numbers.
If you looked at them, they would merely be a zip code. But when I look at them, they become knives still stuck in the wounds they caused.

Their half-assed apologies only took the knife out by 4 inches, but it was an eight-inch deep wound. So now it juts out of my back like half of a pair of wings.
All this is a thing only I can see.

I cross the street, away from the stony and looming giants. I am closer to the violent coast, and the waves thirst for my last breath.
I stand motionless, then I smile.
It's not one of joy or even anticipation.

As the sun rose, great fiery blooms of smoke and debris spilled out from the formerly impervious building.
Scattered screams dot the sky.
My silhouette illuminates for a second, then it dissipates. I am left unseen once more.

My smile grows: not of relief or comfort but of sheer halcyon beauty.
I always saw the nonsensical beauty in clouds, people, and places.
They never saw it, so I made them a part of it.

A masterpiece greater than anything they accomplished; my magnum opus.

The fire dwindles, and sirens sound from far off. I pivot on the concrete and start walking away. My smile calmed down into something just for me.

The only time when something is my own is when it is the result of something else breaking.

Petrichor settled over ash, and the sun peeked down at my art to smile.

***

I glance at the horizon through the dirty train window, and I lament that I never did it sooner.

Disansthropy is my vice.
Vices can set you free momentarily.