#173

she was the one who taught him that a literal slap in the face hurts far less than the metaphorical one.
she loved everything so emotionally, so symbolically, maybe because her mother never did. everything she loved became too abrasive, too abusive. like family and alcohol and whiteout and natural disasters. chasing after steel plated hearts, grasping at them with her clammy hands. if only she was made of fire.
if only she hadn't been broken.
she was different than anyone he'd met. maybe it was a different time. maybe she was the last of the substantial. she was the last before girls' brains were made of only glitter and self-absorption.

#172

if i press my knees hard into the back of the bus seat maybe you will turn and ask me to stop. maybe you will say i'm sorry, it's my back, you see. i have problems with it. and i would be immediately apologetic. you'll see right away how sorry, how nice i am. i'm sorry, sorry. i was just stretching. you might begin to turn around again and i'll interject. i have a bad back too sometimes. and maybe we will bond over this problem that nobody wants.

#171

frantic.
searching a box under his bed. where is it? anything, anything.
a whole day of his life, gone. vanished, nowhere in his memory. he scanned the wall. pennies, cigarette butts, notes, headlines, each with a tiny date scribbled in his own handwriting.
if i can't remember, it never happened. if there's nothing to document, how did i know i was here?
every moment, missing.

fiftyseven

She showed him the stars like another person would show off pictures of their nieces. “And there’s Orion. And that’s Venus. Wait, no... Yes! It is!”

“And that blinking one is a satellite, if you watch it you can see it move.” Everything is that way. Everything becomes something different, somewhere else. And this wasn’t one of those times after which the world ends, but it let him know that someday there might be one of those times.

“Mars would be... behind all those houses over there.”

fiftysix

That road’s been closed for construction for three years. I think they’ve forgotten about it. Or, if not, they should.

The rain that taps the roof of the car is rain only because it’s just barely too warm to be snow. I want to see people and I want to see life but there’s none of that here, and it’s hard to have high hopes in a city it takes ten minutes to get across.

#170

moonlight etched its way through the branches and shone through her eyes. laying back against the old oak, he looked at her, replaying their best moments in his mind.
he remembers me differently, she thought.
and she was right. he remembered her delicately, his memories of her fluttering softly, like butterfly wings.
he was the first and last to see me that way.
since then, her life's gambit was Hemingway's iceberg theory. her only fear was that it has been so long since she adopted it.
maybe now my surface is all that exists.
he knew she was quieter now, more abrasive, with a strained a confidence. but like always, he saw her accurately, like some sort of emotional Superman, viewing every heartbreak and subsequent stronghold. it was time to make a decision. should he hold each memory at arm's length? let her go on with the life she created? or maybe, hold each butterfly gently cupped between to trembling palms, trying to peek at this momentary beauty. trying to see if that beauty really was so fleeting.

#169

three years ago he had forgotten to lift his glass for the toast. it had all the pretty phrases... "perfect for each other" and "you'll do great things together" but in each speakers' mind, the words were only that. and now she still treated him the way she always had, so he lied and justified the way he always had.

waking from a dream at 4:30 on a tuesday morning, he cursed that damn glass... a sign too late.

#168

they moved across sidewalks and crosswalks in the way that fish swim. scattering, moving, riding the current. occasionally one or two took the bait, walked away with a newspaper, took a hot dog or got sucked in under a damp awning. almost every one was caught and thrown back in, immediately unrecognizeable; instant oneness. just once, she thought, as she moved with the flow, just once i want to be caught and kept. not knowing exactly what that meant.
unblinking, she ducked out of the rain and into a store, her jacket shining like scales.

#167

the morning was warm as usual. she slipped out of bed, showered in lukewarm water with white scentless soap. dutifully, she poured a bit of the bottle of lavendar bodywashe her new husband bought her down the drain. he would hold her that night, she would feel his hands laying gently on her hips, and he would say how nice she smelled. he would say that he loved her. taking his hand in hers, she would roll to face him, kiss him but say nothing, and feel guilt that she could not be so honest.

#166

"A traditional Russian dance!" he yelled through his vodka. Feet stamping, beads of sweat appearing on his face, he danced. Through the thick air, strong, vivacious girls called for another round and yet another and he took down too large of a glass in two superhuman swigs. Violins played hotly and he threw his arms to the air, then crossed them again. He had seen too much in his violent life, but when drunk on blood-red patriotism and domestic liquor, these are things a man can't help.

#165

i've never seen her smile. she barely lifts her head up, peeks out from under those lashes, and it just kills me how sad she is.
but she's good at her job.
she's good at mystery too. gray. always gray shoes, gray sweaters. gray eyes, the one time i saw them. she doesn't believe in absolutes.
tomorrow she's getting flowers at work. i want her to know that even if you can't see the world in black and white, a foggy gray haze isn't the only alternative.

#164

everyon's always planning ahead, but life never turns out the way you think. like when my aunt bought baby blothes for me before my grand entrance to this world. i surprised them all by being a boy, but my aunt was so upset that i spent the first month of my bald life being called called "the prettiest little girl" by strangers in supermarkets, who looked at my easter-colored dresses and made the assumptions any well-meaning observer would make.
grandma started knitting mittens for me in July. by septemeber, we had moved to florida.
my mother kept her old saxophone from high school in hopes that her child would appreciate it one day. since i inherited neither the talent nor the desire, she finally pawned it shortly after my 19th birthday. just in case my mother thought she could still hold onto any kind of hope, in a cruel trick of the universe, i destroyed any chances of having siblings while in utero. sorry mom. maybe i was planning ahead.

#163

I don't know if I was born with a heart, really. I had a functioning shell of something filled with blood, pulling it in and letting it go just like we do with each other, warming ourselves in someone's arms, then being cast off too soon, hopefully ready, hopefully able and strong and clean. Functioning isn't the same as being whole.
So then everyone who comes along with a kind word, drops off a little piece of heart, making me stronger maybe. Then you. And you showed me the sky but while i was looking up, you grabbed so many pieces of my heart, reaching in like a child snatching cookies behind his mother's back. You were gone before I could say wait!
you should know it took many, many people to fill up all those pieces that you stole.

#162

she asked for a dollar. i don't have any cash.
come on, she persisted and started telling me of her kids (real or imagined), her broken down car, her Christianity (ah, there's the God-card i was waiting for, thanks for playing).
refusing her again, she followed me, brushing a lock of hair behind her ear and spreading apart the top buttons of her blouse.
i've never been so happy to see a taxi in my whole life. sorry, darlin'. you're one of the least compelling people i've ever met.