Timbuktu

A couple of days ago you invited me to join you
in Timbuktu, a bar we had visited before,
several times; As we entered, the place was
a little crowded and Imagine Dragons sang

Not Today in the background. The conversation
flowed like a mountain stream in the Monsoon,
while the noise around us grew, and the alcohol
helped drown it all out. I remember being there,

orange lights in my eyes and seeing your smile
as you held my hand and squeezed something
like hope into it; and then called for
one more shot, by which time I was incapable

of refusing. We all know how such stories end –
with your head in the toilet, as your hair falls
over your face and you wake up next morning with
a million little hammers in your head.

Except nothing like this happened; I woke up this
morning, and placed one foot gingerly into a world
in which you don’t exist. Timbuktu after all, is a
remote place and to all recent memory, imaginary.