I wrote something for someone’s project. That was three years ago and I stumbled on it again today. Do have a look, flip to page 13, and you’ll see a familiar story.
Funny thing is, the sentiments and circumstances I shared in that story hasn’t changed one bit. Except that I’m older, not necessarily wiser.
What we want
is never simple.
We move among the things
we thought we wanted:
a face, a room, an open book
and these things bear our names—
now they want us.
But what we want appears
in dreams, wearing disguises.
We fall past,
holding out our arms
and in the morning
our arms ache.
We don’t remember the dream,
but the dream remembers us,
It is there all day
as an animal is there
under the table,
as the stars are there
even in full sun.
Head over the edge of the bed,
ankles crossed and
upside down,this is how I talk to you.
Yesterday
we were on the phone for
what felt like hours even though
when I checked the duration
of the call later on,it ended up
being only 42 minutes.42 minutes of laughing
and comfortable silences
and you telling me about your
day and me telling you about mineand 42 minutes of the sound of
your voice, its inflections and rhythms,
all lovely soft and new,and even though we’d both admitted
to not being ‘phone people’
there we were like we did this
every day.I knew we had no hope
when you told me you weren’t
really into holidays
but still I felt my chest
become an icebox whenher name was brought up,
and you said things were getting
serious and the difference in age startled you,
made you a little anxiousand I said nothing
and I wonder if that in itself
said everything.You said her name again and
the blood was rushing to my head
and suddenly I wasn’t a holiday person
either,I wanted April showers and May flowers—
I wanted a spring thaw,
a pooling of water in my chest,
a drowning,
a baptism.
