the time i spend

looking out over the city and there's a sky that reminds me of a color from a crayon box when i was small.

or maybe it's a similar sky that i looked out upon when i was young, when i had feelings coursing through me instead of these same dissatisfied thoughts repeating on an infinite loop.

or maybe it's a sensation that made sense to me once; a realization. now i feel like everything's been realized.

walk down and a street and i always think of a particular scent.

listen to a record and i can hear her voice again.

that particular sunset that goes with that tv show we used to watch.

i see in reruns.

it's all on the back of the shelf now.

but what i'm trying to do is take it down once in a while.

and maybe i can pretend it's new again.

or at least try to remember what it was like when it was.

why do you disappear

i had done it once again.

a vague memory of buying another 12-pack at the publix by phillips park. no memory of what the note said.

no memory of even leaving the note until some time later on saturday, useless in bed, watching the high clouds drift by. suddenly the memory of scrawling it out whilst sitting at a bus stop.

and now here i had found what could only have been a rough draft of the note i left. it was addressed to her, it was from the same pen in my jacket pocket.

the time it does go away with the speed of foolishness

i diverged from our plan due mostly to the sycophancy of footmen

suburban station: america's jungle

i trust you are well. please respond

this didn't even sound like me.

i remembered when miami held a promise to us.

now miami was an endless sprawl of pastel and stucco mediocrity.

every new towering crane mocked my failure.

every oppressive evening put sweat on my cheeks when i was too proud to cry.

staring at the cruise liners sat staunchly in the port. remembering the afternoon we moved the furniture in, before the electricity had been turned on.

later i took her to a small cafe with a backyard ringed in tall bamboo.

we sat under a cloudless evening sky as planes descended overhead.

certain we'd found our shangri-la.

her smile lit softly from above like a painting at the end of a dim museum hallway.

and me sitting there, entranced with everything.

the clinking of flatware suddenly distant.

fever dream

you were like a downed power line, i was afraid of you so i kept my distance but i hung back in the shadows waiting to see someone else get hurt. but they stayed away, too.

you were like a deep cut from a kitchen knife. i was trying to create something both of us could share. vivid, alive when it happened. now, decades later i can see a faint reminder but the skin has been shed and replaced many times over.

evening in spring, 1994. you are getting dressed.

browsing the devices you use to look more beautiful. you don't need them, i think.

we're going to be late, i say.

my hair needs to dry, you say.

just blow dry it, i say.

do you have any idea what would happen if i used a hair dryer on my hair?, you said.

actually ______, i have no idea at all what would happen, i said.

but i was smiling. and you were, as well.

in a hurry to be adult but doing a better job of it than i am now.

in photographs your hair looks different now.

who is this man who made you change it?

a song comes on the radio that reminds me of you.

i can't recall ever hearing you sing. i can't recall even hearing you listen to music.

still, i shut the door and sing along.