Dogs 2020

vii
(1/15/2020)

before
he
slipped away

his worldly
affairs
began slipping
away

starting
almost a year
earlier

relationships
first

then
job

car

home

he was
preparing
the way
for an
easy physical
escape

his spiritual
escape
would already
be complete
before
he took his
first step
away

only
his bodily
presence
belied the fact
that he was
still there
at all

he would
miss
none of that
which was left
behind

he had
let them go
while they were
still within
his grasp

they
were ghosts

figments
of the collective
imagination

having
no value
at all for him
anymore

as he
cleared
the city

veered
from all
that was civilized

even
the things
that he carried

the clothes
protecting him
from the sun

had faded
from his
mind

as he
was fading
from his
own
existence

he floated
almost free
of the
planet

adrift
in the cosmos

unaware
of any
gravitational
pulls

the Universe
Faris

everything

nothing

folded
together
within
his skin

and the
first day
had just
begun