a million whiles

i stand awkwardly
in the doorway and smile
some difficult wish effervescing ridiculously
all over me
from the mouth of an unintended miscreant
but
paler tragedies have met the lips of this regret
and none of them even
truly tragic
and the havoc
played out, in style
is the last of a million whiles
by default

i stand
surreptitiously
in an alley
surprising me
not particularly interested in the dark, though
when it is simply a lack of light