One, Sweet Memory

The dreams I have these days, are a thick fog. I sleep quickly and wake with nary a stir, my body in the same jumble I left it in. I dreamed that Molly ran off with a radio star, the thought still sickens me somehow. Some fissure of immeasurable depth and darkness has opened up near me, I can feel the vacuum; the insistent tug on my shirt sleeve. She deserves to be a normal girl now; with the sweetness worn off her lips and her hair too tussled - go merrily about your way lithe thing. I still can't say I have a favorite memory of you. My favorite times were always when I left. I can't say I will think fondly of our time on the earth with separate closed doors and your snoring, and your incessant rocking that eroded a limestone karst through my patience.

Holiday Jeer

You would be surprised to know that some old things I still carry around are somehow attached to you – strung in to some neuron or synapse that connect right to the heart of the moment of my highest intoxication to you. Today it was that old video we made; a single angle shot of our quivering backs and your soft shoulders. It was obvious at that moment, and love stories weren't tired or sad back then, and chapters in our books were soft little interludes that came before this great thing. The other things I found made me resort to this, this holy book, and they didn't even have your name emblazoned or your writing attached. I remember simple times when all I cared about was getting away from you, not dredging you out of my soul.

I couldn't likely afford anything in your wedding gift registry, but I almost though of writing you a letter. It would be full of cheer and best wishes, like we were long time pals who thought the best of each other. I try to tell a great story sometimes, and it works when I am drunk or making friends. At the end of the day, I know I left you so I would never have to hear from your lips that I didn't matter, or I didn't mean the exact same damn much you did to me. It isn't that noble, but it saved my life to pretend all these years that you might miss me as much as I loved you. We moved on, but I never want to hear it – I never want to face a reality where you aren't a bespectacled twenty three year old student with a body like a silken white pear. I don't want to remember the way you dance, or try on silly dresses in the consignment shop. I don't want to think of you getting better. I don't need closure, just a tight cap on a bottle that holds these things in rarefied air. I want to be the center, a boy you needed if just for a while, but I died a little death each time I replayed our script and found your speeches just a bit lacking. I suppose that importance I left with will fade, and the story will be a hollow cicada s hell on our old fence posts. I dare say I have been dead for years, just waiting to hear the laugh and the gotcha to spread my ashes out to sea.

I think I have more time to dwell now, more time to face the facts. It is apparent when I wake from a dream and whisper your name, my eyes wet. I half expect to wander old elephant graveyards to weep amongst your bones – but instead you live and I write some shit like this every few years that sounds like a sob story to some high school lover.

I'm afraid you don't need me anymore old fanned and phosphor flame. That every time I change my ways and blaze a new trail, I wait to find you in a different skin and same old familiar rib cage. I still want to make love with your glasses on, but I know the world won't allow us the opportunity to screw it up so well again. Sometimes our rockets miss their delicate planned orbits and shoot ever so harshly out into deep space. In our case, why not the sun?