A prediction that she would one day run her fingers through her lover’s beard, if he had one, as they sat on lawn chairs, around some slow-motion bonfire fueled by library books pilfered while strolling the stacks for exercise.
Two steps across the wet asphalt and the insanity woke up. Sometimes in the morning, he would put his right leg into the left pant leg, and his left leg into the right pant leg, and rather than stepping out of them, and starting over, he would just put his pants on backwards and go about his day. As if nothing ever happened. But he never, ever, took the vegetarian option.
His future eye could see her firmly pulling down woolen jumpers over the stubborn towheads of children, could see her driving through the middle of the night fold cold medicine, could see her decorating newly bought houses, making empty into home, could see her comforting the damaged, old, deflated ego that would one day surely be his. Tapping on glass, trying to get the attention of a skinned and stuffed coyote.
Yeah, yeah. That one time…
Remember the guy who…
That car would never…
I swear if she says…
The beach always makes me…
His house was just so…
He chewed on an unforgiving fingernail and gave the window another mindless look. The afternoon had sluggishly crawled to its feet. It seemed destined to remain unexplored, swampy, with tangled vines and a light mist. He used his mustache to light a cigarette. It was on fire.
God, that house you were born in. Damn, those telephone wires that framed it against the sky. Damn those wires. Or that t-shirt you left in an apartment 600 miles away. Made you feel like your dad. Like duct tape. Or dirty socks. Love. In regular doses, as prescribed by child psychologists everywhere.
In the Bible somewhere God forbids humans to eat griffins. Horse blood, is what I’m guessing griffins eat, or drink, rather, and I don’t know if the Bible forbids that, but if it doesn’t, then can I walk you home? You’ve been smiling into my face all night.
Slipping my way up to your house, I nearly broke my neck. Cursed conscience and a bag full of ice cream. The cherry trees. The old cow breathes a slushy white, and she’s looking to the not-morning sky for secret signs, like colonial constellations.
Rubik’s Cube, it makes me sad that so much of our lives have been erased by depression.
Slip of the tongue. Drip. Word travels, you know. Things get around. Things have a way of getting around. I want to be expensive, I want to be free, it’s the Land Before Time. Before Cell Phones, I mean.
There wasn’t much time, and if you can’t play mind-ball, then we don’t really have a game now, do we? Cushions? I believe we’re all wonderful interesting people put on this earth to do creative fascinating phenomenal things. And then, potato salad. Who really likes it? Who really likes life? Really? Really, you do?
Outside is wet. The rain has painted everything a shade darker. Vividness can be overwhelming. There is a little cafe, where thousands of books are piled neatly against three walls. The building could be made of books, for all I know. The gray leads there. And follows me ten feet inside. This was as far as weather was ever allowed. A slippery river, winding its way from door to counter. Embanked by the tall pines of the chair legs.
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The moon dots grow long on my forearm, and it’s high time we didn’t talk shit no more. I mean, I’m sorry, are you able to tie a tie a tie? All together? You slunk down, with your hips first. Someone shouted at you from a passing car: “Here’s some attention, baby!” You didn’t look up, never having heard of you.
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