READY, ABLE

Our hands cautious, then unexpected. We were too drunk to notice the last words before the first kiss. Between us, odd comfort like being in a crowd without people. Our eyes, the only light, wanted then found. We were towels tumbling from the mouth of a dryer. Take care of me, my hands often plead around other’s bodies, moist with excitement, their faces still with thought of impression and others. Consistently, I am second best. What happens now? “We’re just friends right?” Those words, now considered an invalid to my heart. I forget I have care around me. It hovers like a six day old balloon. We drift like trees. Exactitude of idleness and grief surpasses the ability to navigate further. What’s the quest? I I am enduring because I have no need for cardio. My body is limp with lack of upper body strength. Quitting smoking now greatly reduces serious risks to your health.

                Sip and stare at the people from the vans, all perched up on an invisible cloud of happiness, of incredulity—I don’t remember how it started. But that’s a lie. Before I knew you, really cared for you, eye contact was a ploy. As a child there were children who played outside, who had friends, made friends with just an utter of hello. Mutters and mumbles of few words that would grab another into a trance of friendship. That mutated with age. It had to be more than just mutters and mumbles. Sincerity and trust now played a part. The part was a heroine in disguise and if you broke that heroine, physically, emotionally, she would disappear from stage and she would not be brought back by a knight.
                But maybe she could. What if the play could rewind from Act V to Act III then Act I and then the camera of your eyes could pan to backstage where the heroine undressed then dressed into her black lace with gentle fingers. You could caress the untouched body that has now been touched by unknown fingers which have no name and will not have a name, until the faint green of her eyes mutter, yes, I remember. You can only lock yourself out if you don’t have the key locked away.

All there is, is noise. The dogs chat with the ones down the street by howls, the babies cry for others, for things. They are helpless and I just want to not be able to hear. Guilt outlines my body like thick thread on a backpack. I cannot carry any of it. 

Last night I dreamt I disappeared into a glass box. There was the glass box, under water, I lay in the middle. Above I saw the waves, I felt the waves, I heard the waves. There was silence. A silhouette appeared in the right corner, hesitant and cautious of me. I felt the box quiver and my lips quiver. It felt nice, there was a breeze. The silhouette did not make me nervous, but rather, happy and comfortable. I lay and stretch, opening and closing my eyes to the silence of the waves. “I don’t know you but you matter to me already.” 
I had a dream once that I met a ‘normal’ boy, and he left for a year or so. I dated another. The ‘normal’ boy returned. I kissed him, I loved him.
The silhouette began to float around, there was only an outline of his body. It was a man. He was patient with me, taking my hand and together, we floated through the glass into the waves. “These are your last known surroundings.”

_______________________________________________________________________

We are doing this out of sadness and pity. 

Time shouts in my fucking face, “You are second best.” But that isn’t true. Not to myself. Not to someone who will one day keep words close. 

21 “We are always going to be friends.”
19 “Listen, our time isn’t right now, but it will be, when you’re out of high school. I can picture spending the rest of my life with you.” 
17 “You and I just know each other so well that we have to be in each other’s lives.”
17 “I want to take care of you as long as I can” 

It’s okay, I understand. Things don’t stay the same, we grow. I love words so much I have just learned to trust them, even when they come out of other’s mouths and not mine. I’m wandering.

At fifteen, I was influenced at a different depth. I crossed the boundary line and have made it out alive. I haven’t slept or eaten well in so long. But occasionally, I find myself asleep and goodness, it feels so good. It’s a weight off my entirety and I can’t help feel happy, even though my circadian rhythm is nowhere near where it should be.

There I was, wandering in delirium in a crowd of pot and out-of-towners, locals, and dark chocolate covering bacon. My dress came off and I danced in sweat and my lace and my sweater vest, wasn’t it lovely. I got to see tits, a sixty three year old take a hit, and make magical mystery eye contact with older guys. 

I left early, finding myself wandering again in thought this time, meeting a friend. Six months ago was another influence, hallucinogens and cigarettes and alcohol. It was a Sunday, a day for rest, a day dubbed for prayer. But I know now, I don’t believe. That doesn’t matter, but what does, is that we kissed again. I found myself in his arms and it wasn’t right, no, not at all. Whispers. “This is out of sadness, out of pity.” “Fuck.” But we continued.

A few days ago, I wandered. In a more ‘there’ state of being. It was a happy wandering, with people who make me happy. I crave the silence and the laughs and the happiness that drips through pinholes in my skin. 

Pressure. To do more. To experience. To lose. To have. To want. To forget. To remember. To forget.

Knowing when to stop. Self-control. Expressions. Master them. Protection. From others. From yourself.

Through the sheets, you feel his thigh, a comfortable warmth like a thick quilt. The heater doesn’t work in this room. The two of you lay side by side on a make-shift bed, three unwashed blankets and pillows, worn and aged like the wine he brought from his father’s wine cellar that night. The room is cold, and you shake. He wakes and holds you closer to his unclothed body and between each of you, there is warmth.
Tonight, you saw the stars for the very first time. The song you have played over and over again has a different meaning. The song is now urgent, like his hand which runs up and down your leg, unshaved. It is a Wednesday and you aren’t in school. A week will pass, then two and maybe three, but it’s hard for you to recall because of the beers and wine he bought just for you. There was motivation in his eyes. Careless and hesitant eyes that formed a new expression on your face. He drank cup full after cup full of that expression, liquifying down into a mold that still lingers when you wake up to the light sliding its way to outline your figure underneath your own sheets, clean and smelling of only you. 
Tonight, you yearn for your own body. The only warmth is between your thighs. The only stars you’ve seen are temporary and abstract. You walk through the streets and your workplace, and you forget the day before with beers you stole from your roommate’s refrigerator. The song has a different meaning.

It was overcast when they left and overcast when they arrived. Their first breaths together equaled relief. The bees hover around the spring flowers, freshly bloomed and awakened from a bitter winter. The bees came from somewhere north where they were suspected of disappearing. The towns they flew to were towns they had never been to before.  The towns lacked vegetation. The bees died off quickly: by radiation of street lights and car exhaust, poisons from humans, pollution of industrialization. In groups they thought they’d survive but it wasn’t so. As travelers, they thought they would survive together but the towns wouldn’t accept them like they wouldn’t accept cash at the franchised restaurants. The comfort the survivors felt hovering around the flowers was something similar to what the bees considered home. Here, around the flowers, it was a hover of relief to hear the silence. The towns were loud, piercing to their wings and heads.
             

FUCK THIS FEELS GOOD

When the drinks are all downed, drowned in the pit of my stomach with the smoke that was accidentally swallowed and the edibles which were so hard to keep down, the understood words of, This has to stay between you and I, are kept. The boxes are all packed and duck taped three times around the perimeter in order to keep the photographs from disintegrating and the sheets and fluffed pillows from collecting mold. I collect the letters by lamination; organize them in binders which are stacked against the bound furniture. I collect each letter to preserve moments I would not think about, until now. You believed I wouldn’t be taken care of because of the bills that were placed into a manila folder; then fresh, now older. You believed because of my empty cupboards and broken chest of drawers. The clothes, thrown into the six hampers, never touched the inside of our washing machine.