bright lights, loud noises

I am sitting in the dark

I can't play any music, she is sleeping

the cars roll on, the sound less and less frequent

I am not tired,

you don't understand the off-key notes; the wrong shapes sizes and colors in the right places

I am relearning love as the quarter pole shrinks into the distance and the halfway mark ruins the horizon,

the pain moves up from my stomach to my heart in this,

you laid on the floor, your toes pointing due east while I sat on the couch

you looked destroyed, abandoned, and beautiful and all I could think of to do was to get more ice from the freezer

so I dropped a fresh cube in each of our red plastic cups…

and baby, wherever you are, if you’re having a hard time I promise that if you can make it through the night

I told her, "you have several hundred people living inside of you"

"me?"

"everybody"

"right on"

"and it's not even some kind of schizophrenic thing, it's a nice thing"

"ya think?"

"I do"--

and really it was just some half-assed philosophy I'd heard of or read a long time ago

someone carved into stone

that took 10 pages to get to any kind of point

but it seemed like she needed to hear it

I gave her a quarter and she pulled the lever and the food came out, she fed it to the ducks and as I stretched

we sat side the bar in front of the small iron tables. somebody had fucked up on our work schedules and had given us FRIDAY.

it was divine intervention, a miracle, and we squandered it

because there was too much to be done and when that's the case, the solution is,

of course

I don’t want to get to know anyone that hasn’t been laughed at

I don’t want to hear people repeat shit they heard on tv just because they don’t know what else to say

I want a break from the stupidity

I want to find someone that is shy, obscene, sad, and clumsy,

I saw you walking down the street yesterday

beanie pulled way down scarf up over your cartoon nose

I almost pulled over to give you a ride but that wouldn't have done either of us any favors

it would have broken the spell that has served us so well for the nearly 3 years

it would have brought on that easy conversation

that mutual love for the beaten, bizarre, and unnecessary

it would have rebuilt that bonfire

that roared through hurricane after hurricane

and was finally stomped out by neglect

it would have been been a mistake

a disaster

so I silently said hello

goodbye

I ordered a coffee and then took a bruised apple out of my work bag

I ate in plain sight

and the waitress looked at me like she hated me, hated my father

I ordered a few pancakes and saw that a comic book had been left in the booth

it was crisp and bright and feminine

and right there on the front cover the woman in distress looked like you

she had blue hair like you

she had a cartoon body like you--

smug

wide hips

built only for justice and pleasure

and when the waitress came back

she saw the magazine and said,

"chicks don't like books"

and I told her not to worry the item was not mine and besides, I had a girlfriend

a pretty one, in fact

we laughed at the mistake

it will come like an unseen left hook,

no drama behind it

just the sudden heavy weight and raw power of too many weeks ignoring the mind and spirit,

it will blink out the light

and send you reeling down that steep slope you fought every inch to climb—

it will undo years of work in one manic instant,

I don’t think I was ever as amused with music as she was

the way the hammers fell on piano strings or the way breath made its way through any brass instrument

I don’t know if I got it like she got it because she would suddenly get silent when the bells rang through the glass of our window

under our blankets, in beds with your body warm and the midnight hanging tough and tired between us

our young souls resting on their laurels while creation hums around us—

"…and then after I run the five K I'm gonna run a TEN K, but I'm not really a RUNNER, I'm a SWIMMER."

I had a juice, it was green, I felt good drinking it, the sun was going down and the wind was blowing just so.

I sat there watching her because I couldn't get a word in edgewise, I hated people like that, they go on and on and on with no reflection, like someone had run their car into a fire hydrant and the water jetted up, UP! and it just kept coming.

I kept fucking with the lid of my juice because I didn't really know what else to do.

"…and I can't wait to go TUBING!"

I imagined her undressed on my bed, sunday morning, maybe, if she was going to hang around with me I knew the running would go soon and then the swimming. it always does.

"…and I've started OPEN water swimming, you know, when you swim in a lake?"

I said that I knew.

sometimes I think of how ridiculous it would be if I went to see you at work and I brought you a stack of papers and gave them to you and you'd say, "what's this?" and I'd say, "I wrote these about you"

and you'd probably read the first one and then the first couple lines of the next three and I'd stand there, doing my best to clear my mind of all thoughts

it's strange that after many years you may end up with the same people.

you may travel thousands of miles and read too many books that are several hundred pages too long;

travel unacceptable distances on your feet and mind

only to finally to look up from your sneakers or an empty cup

before you there was this other girl for a very short time

she was heavier than I would usually date, her breasts were enormous but they weren't firm and her shape didn't really do it for me

but her face was kind and intelligent and staggeringly beautiful so I gave it a go

it was good for a while but because I'm an asshole I lost interest. the sex just wasn't there— the kissing was great but you know, there are other things…