sometimes with kisses, sometimes with scorn

all morning, ann and i read in the diffused light of an overcast morning, scattering the chronicle and the times into smaller and smaller fractions of themselves across the kitchen table. after i bathe and she finishes her coffee, i gather them up into one thick bundle and stuff them into the recycling. the thin pages stick to my hands, still wet and smelling faintly of liquid soup from the dishes, but they are anchored by a simple fold to the rest of the publication. sometimes the knots that hold us back are in fact uncomplicated, not even knots at all. poor paper, waiting in the closet, exhausted by our curiosity, pleated into submission, sitting in the dark until it is crushed and reshaped again into something else.

yesterday kyle took me to lunch at the cheeseboard, we drank cold beer slowly and i licked the garlicky oil off of my fingers. while the polish jazz singer smiled with his mouth wide open, the pianist rocked almost imperceptibly, except for the sway of his steel-colored ponytail and his hands chased themselves tirelessly across the keys. let's hear it tambourine, drums, trumpet... we walked our bikes halfway to the gym, naming all the plants we knew. i felt like i was living someone else's life, as though i had stepped in on a dance and my name was not on the card. we climbed for a few hours, long enough for me to be in the right place at the right time again, and then met antonio on the way home. he builds top of the line speakers for a living, but in his free time plants beautiful flowers outside of his workplace. hollyhocks rise six feet tall along the side oft he building with snapdragons and alyssums around their ankles. spiderflowers attract the police he tells us, they look too much like marijuana for comfort, he shakes his head, smiling. his other hobby is ballroom dancing. you've gotta enjoy life! he laughs, come back and enjoy the flowers!

allison and i talk for an hour and watch bad tv before we go to bed. better than the mire of the suburbs and my own inbred thoughts, better than trying to make you mad on the phone just to see because i'm not sure i matter, better than any number of destructive things i could do