#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.