This Is How

Absentminded musings of time
leak between life and shallow pools of
unfamiliar sex and twilight cocktails.


Mingling among casual context,
chance surreptitiously takes shape
in the serpentine ribbons of heat unwinding
from citrus and chamomile and ceramic.


Inaudible whispers of pause separate the instance of
one thousand twenty nights,
and thoughts heedlessly venture forward,
slipping past well paid wardens of weakness,
to a time when the green sprinkles we bought yesterday at the grocery store
are expected to expire.

I don't think he noticed. 

Loyalty and Logic

If I could just let go 
of the feeling that 
everything would be 
lost -


I do best with decision making between three options. No more, no less.

Pink, green, black.
Mild, moderate, severe.
Wine, beer, cocktail.
Comedy, drama, documentary.
Chocolate, fruit, mint.

It sounds so fucking selfish to say it, but it's true. I have too many alternatives. Too many opportunities. More than three things to choose from.

I've waited nearly two months for a hard offer from the hospital in Atlanta. I've called their bluff on offers for other positions within the company. I've played the game and interviewed with multiple other groups.  (I'm no longer one of those girls who doesn't know what she's worth.) In fact, I'd started to give serious consideration to places I never intended on living. To job titles I never intended on pursuing.

Minneapolis.
West Lafayette?
San Antonio.
Las Vegas?
Australia.
(Tenure?)

Then it came. Then they called my bluff. With a deadline.
The clock ticks in Atlanta.
And now I am back to square one.

Fucking loyalty. Fucking logic. 

Also, I have missed you. 

..

Truth and Consequence

I've toyed with the notion of tearing a page from this place.
A gift of paper folded into paper.

I would sit cross-legged, facing him, and slide it over the (sometimes preposterous distance of) wrinkled bedsheets between my knees and his fingers.

A piece of me.

He would lift it up and carefully unwrap it, meeting my eyes for a moment before looking down to find that he is holding my insides between thumb and forefinger.

I imagine his furrowed brow trying to translate.. to make sense of the context for a time much longer than required to read it through.
Did you write this? he might think aloud.
Is it true? because he won't remember.

And what do you suppose he would do with the tiny story I gave to him?
Would he find value? Or indifference?
Would he find me there? Or just strung out words?
_________________________________

No one knows about this sanctuary of mine. Not Jack. Not Laila. Not my little sister (who might be too wrapped up in her own life to read for the sake of being a part of mine, but who should one day stumble into this darkness because we are two old souls lost in time).

I could delete that last paragraph. That would tidy it up -- a little nip/tuck into something simple, something more complimentary of the Christmas packaging.

I might die forever in the sins of such omission. 
Would you?
_________________________________

brittle

You are the most incredible woman I've ever met. 

Those eyes, dramatically painted in the color of royalty with lashes for days,
a pale shoulder slipping through an oversized neckline -

She will pull you in

and lift you up

  up

                p

          u  

   

and the world falls away
because you are the only person that matters

Mon amour...

You might become addicted to that rolling high
of everything she embodies
for you -
a challenge and a novelty, adventure and good fortune-
undeniably there is no one like her in the world -

yet suspicious
of all who came before and after 

presently
you may find yourself
passionately compelled 

to snatch her down and smash her up

claiming a piece for yourself
before she gets to thinking
she's got it all

with
or
without
you

10:21

I used to gasp and feign surprise, fingers brushing my collar bone. 

I can't believe you remembered, I would say sweetly. 

Season and space were irrelevant when the clock flipped. 

Twenty one minutes after ten. 

Ten twenty one.

Day or night. 

10:21

Happy birthday, baby! He would turn to me and smile so brightly he made strangers believe it was true. 

Of course it was a silly second of nonsense. But even then he was unhappy because my "birthday" came around twice in a normal day and his only once in the afternoon. 

I wonder if he still plays the game. For how many days or months or years will he silently think of me when the clock strikes while she is none the wiser?