He wrote fifty words to waste time. Maybe his own. He wrote fifty words to waste time. Maybe his own. He wrote fifty words to waste time. Maybe his own. He wrote fifty words to waste time. Maybe his own. He wrote fifty words to waste time. Maybe his own.
I think of shoegaze and I can smell buttered scones, loose sweaters, English rain and English melancholy. I can hear noise on my radio, I can feel Florida air thirty years after the fact. Seattle has nothing on the Irish Sea. Despite it all, I can feel pain too. Sad.
The dry shuffle and scrape of a leaf from a book. Using one finger with that careful, precision force to both grip and slide it across it’s brother. The fresh read produced a smile from her.
With ravenous affection she split it down the middle and smelled the binder’s art.
He clicks and clicks. It’s fortunate the internet doesn’t charge him rent.
Alerts illuminate his face and tell him which friends he can talk to.
His head in hand, his eyes dart to the corner. Her name appears: “____ has connected.” His heart races and he feels like he’s falling.
It was a life of books. Inspired at 11 years of age by Thomas Jefferson’s quote.
Now as he contemplated a move, he looked at his collection. Not much but dust and paper. Some hadn’t been read yet. But where could he put them?
Did not Saturn eat his children?
I always say: “Happy Birthday.”
We broke up.
It’s polite and charming to continue with the greetings.
“Happy birthday!” I’d email.
She had a son with her new boyfriend.
I thought, “Maybe my greetings are perceived as attempts to get back together.”
I don’t think so, but I stopped anyway.
Why does she always seem out of reach? Even after so much time, we have a good time in each other’s company. Things fizzle out, inevitably, I know. But when do I stop caring? When will I stop caring?
Questions posed to no one in particular are the worst sort.
So, I had a few sisters. They were good. I didn’t know my sister would end up being the product of a pair of strangers’ fuck. That is how it happens, though; your friends become your family.
And then grampa has surgery, and I still don’t know what family is.
The other students handed in their test booklets in due time. But she sat there, chewing the pencil, brow knitted, mind twisted into knots, refusing to submit anything that didn’t have just the precise word she was looking for. And so she could not get past “The…” and failed miserably.
Golden ringlet curls settle around an ashen face. Slaves sweat in fields and she can see them. Her thoughts go out to the son of one, away fishing. She meets him now and then and they talk. He isn’t as polite as daddy’s friends. And yet he knows her best.
