Trees and buildings are trees and buildings respectively.
Then there’s fog that makes the air palpable and trees begin to only suggest trees.
Nothing isolates like it.
Density gains value.
Familiarity introverts. As do trees, buildings and certainty.
People only pass by when they pass by and conversations don’t connect.
Your friends and you are gestures.
Once you’ve been here in the fog long enough, you too will suggest trees.
A hibiscus gimlet thing that the barkeep named “The Rachel” sat between us.
i thought it tasted of fabreeze and it didn’t matter because you loved it. So, I loved it.
For just a few minutes after we kissed goodbye, the same went for myself.
That night I got as drunk as I did in my formative years, and deemed the t-shirt i was wearing my “lucky shirt”.
The morning after, I spit breakfast all over and only remembered it was lucky after it was soiled.
I sat on the shower floor;
a fluster-storm of pedialite and disorientation - a combination of uncertainty and optimism.
My phone was in a bag, clutched…
waiting for mutual impenitence after sending you the video where we ran barefoot & primal down Bronough St.
In the way peace was built on bombs, the best night I've had since I wanted to die in the kitchen was built on tequila.
You spent the night here.
Clarifying the inaccuracies of flat memories.
Replaying remiss camera work,
reminiscent of b-role.
It’s not the same but I know you’re in here somewhere
Everything is going grey.
The roads are going on.
The people got where they were going.
I spent less and less time thinking of you into the winter.
...became less like where I came from and let it take up less space.
Feelings come, feelings go.
My joints ache in the cold and I don’t feel obligated to see you around Christmas anymore.
I said “that should be fine” after you turned up the AC and turned off the lights.
I've got another troublesome migraine.
The air quality in this old place is shit but I wanted to live alone so I could focus on music.
And it was cheap.
I can’t hear much of you telling me to take better care of myself over the traffic on Tennessee street.
I remember wanting to kiss you on the mouth then, but I was scared and my big words made you feel beneath me.
We're just a combination of our insecurities.
Tonight we’re planning on drinking like we’re 22, and we’re 24
There's a couch and a bed in the same room. A difference in flooring separates the kitchen and living space in this unfamiliar studio flat where I met your friends.
I'm not good at remembering names or talking about myself. You aren’t good at talking and you know it. So we chatted, holding hands, a combination of our insecurities. One good night is worth a whole week of just breathing.
I'm sorry for saying thank you with no context before we left. You couldn’t have known why.
Thank you for not asking.
There was a pause that could have easily been mistaken as only the end of the conversation—
as a cue to get up and find another place to drown. One with fewer windows.
I'm sure I could have found the words to say what I needed to if I had read more or studied harder.
But, ignorance threw me a bone.
Because I did not.
Instead…I paused.
In place of some how articulating the reasons why
I paused.
A pause that gave a sense of an ending.
Absolute chaos.
The kind where you want to join,
and the kind where you feel worry for those involved.
The decision to take Scenic instead of Davis hwy
and enjoy the extra 15 minutes because neither point A or B will mitigate the feeling.
I’ve been going to therapy. It is intimate and ineffective.
I would much rather be fighting a stranger in a blue lives matter shirt at the Wilbury
than draw in the velvet of the crazy chair.
