thieves

it is about boys who are like an overcast sky; closed but for the brief moments of sun,  a sun that makes you feel as if you’ve stolen something from the world, sun that leaves you wanting nothing but more thievery.  it is about his shadows, passed from forehead to elbow as he moved farther from me.  it is why i didn’t think he would come and how i knew that, upon leaving, i would never see him again…it is to know wanting, and this knowledge, like a stone, leaves me alone to wonder at the heaviness.

so ive found it difficult to write anything about the slightest streets we passed through; about the hanging gardens that grew sunlight and bike tires and how the cobblestones were a treachery and a game and all i wanted to do was play with him.  but he would get so serious sometimes and his face would turn and i knew that i had lost again.  so i would skip stones in the river and stand on street corners and spin my map around and talk about nothing to myself (or a stranger) and laugh at the silliness of sadness. 

and actually (retrospectively, how easy!) what i wanted from him he could not give me; a kiss on the shoulder, just the smallest of touches.  But i got from him what i needed: someone, a lovely someone, to run with, run from the past and into a brand new present.

on conversations about nothing

while conversing about nothing at the witching hour with my class of bright-eyed believers in the night, i wondered at the simplicity with which we complicate our lives and so decided, with conviction, to walk away from the inexcusable situation.  

it all started in a house, with a feud over hairspray and what is acceptable, respectively, by gender, orientation, so on… and tempers flared with the cigarettes being smoked on the porch. 

it was a strange night, without honey moon or breath of wind.  there was a chair in the overgrown yard that sat among the brambles and it whispered to the long-haired girls; it spoke of wishes not granted, treasures, waves that never reach the shore.   

and the matches were on, streaming five minutes behind and the boys had their eyes glued to the screen, their lips to their bottles.  they sat in hush, somewhere between awe and jealousy. 

so we smiled and manifested the stars in our eyes, slim jaws, frame and accidental flash, in a small wild (what we did with our lives!) what bothered us was how the time passed.

and it passed and passed and played with my watch and we didn’t leave until the police came or perhaps it was just a mistake, a loud story, because we were all confused by then.  

down hills and misconstrued, the night tightened its fingers around the strange and we all felt it, though we kept it to ourselves; raised eyebrows, soft smirks, everyone causes trouble sometimes.

and so what if you want to converse about nothing for hours, so do it.  so what if you stand in the street lamp glow and talk of ratios and likelihoods and labyrinth like lanes, so if that’s what you want to do. 

but i hate this: composed complexities, indelible waiting, knees bent alternatively with alternating calls.  i have no patience for the wavering, a hemming vacillation, pockets full of secrets.  and if you want to do nothing be sure you love nothing, because what is this life, if not doing what you love?

wick

this is for my friends. 

my faraway loves. 

this is for the wreckage and the repairs, the rings we sewed in our socks, the nights that lay forgotten on the sidewalks, 
ice and black licorice.  

for the needs and radiobeans and other places with dark benches and sticky tables, our names etched in the edges, our rebellion, our carelessness, a legacy.  

pitchers and plastic cups on the kitchen floor, we were witches and we ruled our kingdom (a wooded garden, a secret path) with a flickering, faint grace. 

and what a world we made for ourselves there: dim lights and long mirrors, dimples and white teeth, closets shared, hallways, tears and pillows, fears held as close as consolations, consolations confused with cat eyes - coal, painted fingers, i knew we were beautiful and i felt safe in the confines of our beauty.

my memories are, perhaps, more resplendent than the reality of our academic bohemia, impoverished and riotous, i love them.  

and now in my big bed, i remember smaller blankets, books and spaces (budding hills and window sills) that would not have been the same without you.  

my beautiful babes, lovely, wild, co-op thieves, five lives in the library, stone steps and computer chess games. 
my girls, my throat tightens, i have more to say, but words are like stains: reminiscent, faded… 

i want so badly to tell you i love you, tell you i recall everything (like a child, bright eyes, bright colors), 
tell you not to forget me though the hollows unfold between us, 
to tell you you're my favorites and favorites don’t fade.