Niagara is Steady

I'm saying that I want to know you; and I do at the time- more than I have ever wanted to know another being.
You're eyes feel honest when I look into them. The soft, calculated words you use create a comfort I am not use to. This comfort is short lived though and once you are gone so is the calmness you created. When we sleep, I toss and turns.
Our bodies crush together only to break apart by morning.
It's dark when you leave and I have a hard time falling asleep once you're gone.
The weight of what we have done sits on my chest.
Outside my window I can see the sun rising and the reality begins to set in as the wind blows my blinds up.

Where Are You?

Elaina tells me that drinking gin to put me to sleep will only make it harder to wake up. I reassure her that I am not trying to make it easy, that I wake up and drink half a bottle of NyQuil to dim the pain of the bright sun. I wake up and go right back to sleep again. I tell her I am now dreaming of Connecticut as a safe haven and  the Mid West as a nightmare.

Three Days

They sat around the table with their heads hidden in their hands, almost more embarrassed than sad. The lights were off because the sun had not quite set and a small dog is whimpering in the corner. I feel his pain and his fear with such a force I search for a bruise for the following three days.

642 Miles Later

It’s not July but the road is familiar and the air is warm. I find myself with the windows down, counting mile markers along route 15 and thinking about the winters that have past and the winters that are waiting for me. I am wondering about the people in Massena and if they are happy and if I will ever be happy in the simple way I saw them that day.

At mile 200 my breathing has caught up with my heart beat and I have a faint curiosity about if you’ve woken up yet and who you are next to. I still see you sitting across from me retelling a rehearsed story, as honest as I'd accept you to be but still completely exposed.

I once said, “I want to know you in a way I would never let you know me.”  As true as my words were then, they are more so true as I cross state lines and it begins to snow. The silence of snow brings about a foreign calmness that I have not felt since I stood on the steps of Adams Street in a sea of black and white and pink.  

I listen to talk radio and pretend I am in the studio, driving past small towns, I am being interviewed and hear myself telling strangers through the airwaves “I thought he had actually killed me, but I just kept driving”.

The End

It was cold for the middle of October and I didn’t wear a coat. I had forgotten how unforgiving the wind can be when you live by the water. You tried to fix everything before you left; the sign on top of the window that I couldn’t reach, the parking lot that wasn’t big enough for my car, the leaky faucet in my bathroom that flooded my tub. You suggested two cheap, but decent, bottles of wine that I will never drink.

I called to tell you thank you and I know this voice-mail will be listened but I also know  you will never hear me. Thank you for the color yellow, wind in my hair & blueberry wheat beer and for reminding me I truly am flawed if not free. I’m sorry all you learned was how to make a decent mimosa and that wet leaves are just as dangerous as black ice.

It was Hot & there was no Wind

We all went from having one life to live, to bracing ourselves for the end. We began drinking and driving, sleeping with strangers and telling off our bosses and best friends. With no time left, we couldn’t stop ourselves from telling everyone exactly how we felt two years ago when they spilled that cranberry and vodka on our beige suede love-seat.

We broke up with our boyfriends and girlfriends sighting the need to be free now that the end was not just coming, but was here. The dogs slept on the bed, nestled in blankets filling up the empty space. We wanted to be free, but not alone.

Two blocks from my house the looting at a Toys R Us was so bad that parents began using their children for protection. But no one saw the promise in our youth now that the world was in shambles, now that hurricanes and earthquakes were literally blowing us off our shaking foundation.

The tiny armor was useless. The future was about to be over.

I lied awake that night listening to the evacuation sirens telling us to go anywhere, but also nowhere. I tried to sleep but the sky was filled with thick hail that beat against the roof until holes broke through and created the sky lights we always talked about installing. News reports blared from the living room with nothing to say except “this is the end." The hope from their voices felt more like a promise than a threat.

112 Main Street

The summer that 22 people died from heat exhaustion on the east coast before August 1st, was the same year I drove 450 miles to say goodbye to a person I barely knew.

As the sweat pooled around the back of my knees I couldn't get the tiny yellow-shingled apartment out of my head. The heat index reached 115 before noon; all I could remember was the month we spent with no air conditioning, sitting on the roof watching the pavement sizzle. The fans blew hot air against our faces and your bangs stuck to your forehead.

Everywhere the heat was making people crazy. Not the put a leash on your cat and take her for a run crazy; the getting married and buying homes with central air crazy. Couples started trading in their vacation homes for summer camps and family reunions, claiming that now was the time to start appreciating one another.

The 11 o'clock news reported on drowning victims swallowing salt water to stay hydrated- fathers openly wept on camera. These images should have broken our hearts, but the heat barreled down so hard that no one could feel anything. We walked around numb.

That's around the time people started saying “I love you” when they actually meant “get away from me”. None of us wanted to be alone if this was the end, because holding a strangers hand is better than reaching out to empty space. At least that's what the statistics proved; the new baby boom would hit that coming spring. Articles were written questioning if the new Summer of Love was upon us- Could it be- had the heat saved humanity?

When I made it to your parents’ house I was greeted by the same light house that welcomed me some 5 years before. It stood creating a shadow on the lake, cooling off the sand just enough to make it bearable for visitors and a little too cool and crowded for the locals. The beach below was littered with bodies and empty towels, sitting on the pier all I could feel was sweat as I watched the people sizzle.

Star Spangled

By Monday afternoon it's actually the Fourth of July but we all seem a little less patriotic and a little more burned out. What’s left of the sparklers have all drowned in the pool and they look meek; now water damaged, the level of danger has escaped them.

We’re all craving sleep and salads, and mango tea with antioxidants to help our bodies detoxify. I’m begging for a couch with a recliner built in, but all I can find is a bench swing so I’m texting you telling you I miss you. I mean to say I miss your comforter and pillows but I know you are part of the package. You don't notice the difference in my tone, or if you do, you choose not to acknowledge it. I continue to complain, you continue to ignore.

To a stranger, this looks more like a battlefield than a backyard. Six of us are sprawled out on towels across the patio with a handful of empty beer cans cradling our red bodies. We’re not sun kissed or sun tanned yet, but here’s to hoping we all agree. Anyone in the grass is risking lying in vomit - we keep saying vomit and laughing like it’s both the best and funniest thing we’ve ever heard. Some of actually do vomit during the conversation.

With my head against the concrete I'm thinking about how I could be happy with less: less work, less scheduling, less time spent trying to find a moment to breathe and actually just breathing. Thinking all of this is making dizzy or the lack of alcohol is making me dizzy or the clouds going too fast for my eyes is making dizzy.

I start to remember the details; they are hazy but there: you walking up the driveway in a bright yellow t-shirt the first day we met- me in black pants and a white flowery button up shirt with a white belt sitting above my waist. I had on black wedges too, but they flew off my feet into the bushes while you spun me around. Your smile was something that people have called infectious.

I can't find my shoes when I finally leave the party, but I'm also not convinced I had any shoes to begin with. (You’ll say that I argued the same point with you in the past and that I lose a lot of shoes. I admit to nothing.) There's a dog barking down the street and I take the East Street route home to make sure it’s okay. After a few blocks, I get tired and sit on the curb and watch the heat rise off the pavement.

Us

You tried to move me to Connecticut; you painted a life of colonial woodwork and dinner parties. You said that this was what I always wanted, to hang up my pencil skirts and let the emperors build the empire while I rested my tired feet.

I said cashmere makes me itch.

I said the feathers in down comforters make me sneeze.

I said that my days have become weeks and I don’t know if it’s dawn or midnight.

I said I wake up and go right back to sleep.

You hired a trainer and a pastry chef, you had a bachelor party and I drove to the 1,000 islands. I drove to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. I drove to Orange County, NY and sat at the train station and let the wind pull at my salon perfected curls. I rode to Hoboken, walked through the crowds and allowed claustrophobia to swallow me. I clutched my purse to my right side, opened a pack of Newports with my left hand and made my way back to what could have been the beginning.

I circled blocks I’d walked down before and traced steps back to where I could have lived. I stopped in front of the 3 story apartment building with a bay window that cocooned the living room and broke into the bedroom. The rooms were separated only by linen curtains and there was no oven, only a microwave.

I never carried boxes up to the 2nd floor; I never forwarded my mail or put the electric in my name. I never dealt with the leaky faucet in the bathroom or neighbor who played bass in a band on the floor above me. I never signed the lease. You never saw it. I never lived there.

I stopped in Secaucus and waited on the platform for a late train, the clink of metal against metal calmed me in a way I had almost forgotten. The constant motion soothed my nerves and I was calm. I did not sleep on the train, but I felt the car rocking back and forth like a baby in a bassinet, or what I assume would be a baby in a bassinet. I drove on 84 west.

You planned a welcome home barbecue for me as a surprise. You invited all the neighbors whom I’d met but didn’t know the names of. I smiled. I felt exhausted. You planned a honeymoon down to Miami where we would take a cruise and sail for 7 days in luxury. You laid your clothes out on the bed for me to pack while I slept on the love seat in my closet.

I said the choppy water makes me sea sick.

I said I couldn’t find the right SPF for the differing climates.

I said I saw a 20/20 special on the lack of cleanliness on major cruise lines.

I said I don't know where you keep your suitcase.

Untitled

My memories were once based on gas stations and shin splints, choosing calorie memorization over Chemistry 101. And in those times between the laps around my neighborhood I learned that commitment was a crime. And the sort of punishment they handed out was for not being brave, for giving in to certainty, for choosing comfort and stability over the open road.

So that’s why it was no surprise when she said she’d write you and didn’t; why you text her and she received all but did not reply to any; why when you finally couldn’t stand the silence and took the pen in your hand as a last resort, the letter you sent went unanswered. The sympathy you looked for was never returned.

And you waited for a forwarding address or P.O. Box because you knew she had turned off her phone and let the bill on her electric lapse so there was so no email address she checked. But nothing came. I tried to warn you. They all tried to warn you. But hearing the words and listening to the meaning always confused you.

A Decade of Bangles

Thinking about writing is simple. Picturing yourself sitting down in front of a computer screen, hovering over a blank sheet of loose leaf, pen in hand- that's the easy part. Fingers against keys and pen to paper- that's a totally different experience.

Being lost in your words is what I think being in a coma would be like. You know that life is going on around you, you are aware of whats happening but lost inside yourself. Do all writers have this out of body feeling? Upon revisiting their words, do they question where such intense imagery comes from? If those particular details grew from their own memories, dreams, where?

A piece of writing is never truly complete, years later you will want to change a comma to a period or a noun to a pro noun. The writer's journey to perfection is never finished, but upon reaching that final sentence for the first time, feeling your thoughts come full circle- a wave of adrenaline rushes against you. A feeling that can last and last, but afterward feels so distant. You're not sure how you got there, but once the hangover sets in, you feel empty, tired, released.

The rush of looking at a page that was once empty but not full is unexplainable. Ask a drug addict how to explain the euphoria of their first high, a marathon runner crossing the finish line- its all a fog until it's over.

Maybe all is Not Lost

Forcing writing is impossible. To think about the vision before you see it creates a falsity that you can not deny. It can be compared to nothing else, because the relationship a writer has with words is not love nor lust nor envy. It can not be faked.

I once knew language. I understood how to manipulate words so a painting would emerge as each sentence melted into the next. I could fill pages with just once glance, in one instance I would be sent into a frenzy.

For too long time, I have not seen anything. I have not felt language in my life. I have been lost. Until I actually was lost. That's what I saw it. Alone behind the wheel, during the 354 mile trip - wrong turns and a broken GPS - my vision came back to me.

We sat next to each other awkwardly; small talk was neither of our strong points. The weather was nice and we both commented on the usual cold that’s expected this time of year. Really, we both starred off, the small was no small talk. I wasn’t listening and I'm confident if I was able to ask today, you wouldn’t remember a single sentence.

I think about all the times we spent together that I took for granted, rare were the moments where you exposed your vulnerability. The patience you proved to have, your persistence was genuine, as was your disappointment the many times I let you down.

You always smelled of familiarity, of an entire days worth of cigarettes. Our eye contact is short lived. I notice the walls, they're bare for the most part; the ceiling looks unstable and there are cracks from the corner to corner. I wonder aloud if anyone else has noticed the cracks. My inquiry is not acknowledged and we continue.

Somewhere around mile 150, I remember a moment, us standing in a sea of pink & white and black both smirking towards one another. And I can see it so clearly.