Mechanical Animal

She walked like she was in a dream from which she could not wake,
her face blank,
her hollow footsteps echoing into nothing.

She was unnoticed,
unconnected.

She wondered if she existed,
or if she were perhaps the creation
of another person's dream,
perhaps the illusion of a patient in a mental ward.

She wondered if a person such as herself,
a person seemingly made of the same intricate
parts as any other human being,
could truly exist with so little purpose.

She drifted.

She didn't know where she was going,
but
each
meaningless
receding
footstep
took
her
ever
closer
to that destination.

She contemplated the cigarette burning between her fingertips
and then inhaled deeply,
watching the glowing tip devour the white paper and turn the rich brown tobacco to dead grey ash.

I even breathe artificial air,
she thought as she exhaled.

Who was she?

Maybe the person in whose imagination she lived knew;
she did not.

She hissed as her forgotten cigarette burnt to the filter
and singed her fingers with its last spark of life.
The pain cleared her mind and brought the world back into focus.

Sometimes pain is the only thing that confirms you are alive.

Maybe that is why we pray for it to go away...