The Stranger

She wore too much makeup and too little pride. 

The evening air sank into silence and she sighed, sucking in the humidity and throwing away tears. She had forgotten why she had stumbled away from the club. She forgot his name and his advances, but she vaguely remembered him. 

Hazy recollections of June lips and December eyes remained. 

These flashes of forgetfulness blazed more often now, the present already slithering out of her fingertips into the forgotten. 

Exhaustion gnawed at her brain. Her head sought comfort on the sticky seat of the bus stop bench and sleep soothed her cries.

As she fell, I stood up and wished I hadn't heard a word.