Dave Matthews Band and Us

Where are you going,

Where do you go.

Are you looking for answers,

To questions, under the stars

Well if along the way,

You are grown weary,

You can rest with me

Until a brighter day

When you're ok.

-DMB

She felt like a planet he could see only at night...she smelled like a perfume that he could detect on a passer-by.  And in the wake of their departures she extracted from him the full essence of what he tried to give to her...tried to convey.  Pieces of him, full-struck from her, like an explosion that leaves a residue...he  carried smatters of her and he hoped that parts of him stuck to her.

Where are you going?  

A simple question...departing a car, departing a visit...a departure.  She knew he would always have to go...he just tried to mask it.  His movement away from her...not every night could be a super moon...not every time.  Rather, it wasn't just an inquiry from her...it was because his departure caused them a disturbance.

Her return...a galactic pull of gravity...he could actually feel when they were supposed to  reunite...the months, the days and weeks...like a calendar being crossed off in Sharpie X's...closer...come closer...when will you be close to me?

Her presence was like the season...warmth...colors...rain...snow...the time together was mapped across a calendar, highlighted with those X's on the day of the week but mostly aligning to a time that encapsulated them into a small and tiny place.  

A teacup of a place...it was that small.

Where are you going?

It was interruptive.  Her presence.  His.  Not where the usual occurred...rather it mostly happened in dreams and a bit of fantasy.  Like rain in a drought stricken area...when it arrived it was overwhelming...just being near her.  A touch.  A reality....a pinch, am I dreaming?

She stuck.  

She embedded.

Her face...eyes...like a permanence upon him...unable to ever disappear.  She changed each time he saw her, becoming more beautiful than before, as if that was possible...but the familiarity was the foundation...and like the anticipation of sunrise with certain colors she emerged even brighter than anticipated....

Mostly she just simmered...in his mind like a pot left on the stove to slowly remained heated...occasionally to bubble over but mostly to remain a source of heat and slow burns...

But when she arrived...when she was near?

It was a full blown wish made from a dandelion...something coming true that was impossibly expected...something warm from a heat unexpected...the sound of a planet in a dark space asking to be seen...the rush of a presence that materializes unexpectedly....

Where are you going?  

She asked as he slowly slipped out of her...he held her in an embrace and she moved slightly and the room was the smallest planet in the galaxy but her proximity was closer than he had ever hoped for and it was better than he imagined.  

Replicating Storms

The size of an engagement ring box.  A space that holds the future.

  The tiniest of spaces where you can contain such sparks...such beauty, such unlocked parts that are dramatic and inspiring.

Frame the anticipation, the wanting...the build-up and desire...the slow boil of water over gas heat...the old-school popcorn in foil bulging in a bag as it heats and expands...

It was the same as the first kiss when she walked into a room...strangers beside and noises and lights and a brief rain outside...a gray that muted any atmosphere.   Her stroll across seven lengths of floor brought her into my orbit, extreme proximity...the feel of a heat that is reminiscent of old homes...heated by oil, the sound of pipes warming in a cold southern morning.  The warmth starting from the floor, the feet, and beginning to spread across the body.

Her lips were intoxicating, the slight taste of Burts Bees newly applied...and she shed clothes like a season progressing through the year...warming...trees dropping leaves of color and standing there in a stark contrast...

Against the white sheets...her gaze an impulse...a beckon.  The way strangers line up on the beach to watch sunsets...drawn to a beauty that each night brings something new.  Something fresh.

And the challenge in replicating storms is the ingredients...the conditions...humidity, low pressures, and electrical charges...pulsations and attractions.  Attractions...drawing winds downward and pressure upward into a symphonic movement that crescents into an arc of proximity until an explosive force is diffused...sparkling across the sky and heaving in its moments...the thunder a delicate afterward like breath in an ear.  Their bodies intertwined...their arms and legs puzzle pieces perfectly aligned...him inside...the her of tiniest spaces that feels like the future...and feels like a massive storm has passed.

She created such storms...she created the conditions...she became we and we became the arc of proximity, the sense of attraction, the pulsation and the sparks of what some might call lightning.

There was such peace in the silence...her heart thunder against him.  Her Burts Bees on his lips still.

Inside of the Helicopter

He had a scar.  It was noticeable.  A long streak above his right ear like a graze that was pink and mottled.  Above his eyebrow of his right eye was a straight line that paralleled the brow, white against his skin and never tanning.  It was those things she first noticed.


In 2006 it was the deadliest year in Iraq.

He had stopped for a kid.  Commanding a convoy of trucks he was in the lead vehicle.  The dust was pervasive and the heat uncompromising...relentless...the bottoms rutted out of the street and the vehicle bounced along...he saw out of the corner of his eye movement and reached over to the Corporal.  He looked over at him and said stop...first once, then louder.  The vehicle jarred to a halt and he looked behind him to ensure the tankers weren't crashing into him.  And he got out and the heat crashed into him and the dust filled his eyes and his nose and he pulled the baclava up higher across his face and strode to the middle of the street.

It was a little girl...with a red headband chasing a soccer ball.  The ball skidding across the street and she was turned towards the hood of the vehicle...a foot away.  She stood there blinking until her mother, or some other figure picked her up and pulled her out of the street.

And that's when the first bullet hit him.  It hit an exposed part of his leg, just above the ankle and it felt like a bite and it twirled him and he knew...in that moment he knew it was bad and it was going to get worse.

He yelled at the driver to get back...grabbed his tactical radio and told the mission crew to abort and to reverse course...too many vehicles packed into this street would create a massive explosion if the right amount of violence occurred.  He saw the panic on the driver's face...his Corporal.  He nodded...like assurance.  Like "you've got this"...and then the world exploded.

He remembered tasting dirt...it was dry and there was a ringing in his ear.   His leg was on fire and his face felt like a dry-shave...and he couldn't move.  He saw tread marks in the dirt of the street...moving away...and he remembered he wanted them to go backwards...away from where he was.  But now he saw tires...and they were near his head.  And then he fell asleep.


He couldn't see.  He felt movement and was being jostled.  He heard shouting and the din of noises...his helmet was off and it was sunny...it wasn't dusty anymore.  He felt like his head was on fire and his leg felt disjointed but broken...and he was looking for his Corporal...but he couldn't see.

Some one was shouting at him...he was so tired.  He couldn't find his driver, shifting on his weight and looking around.

Sit still somebody said.   Sir...sit still.  He felt hands upon him, pushing him down.  He was in a stretcher...he was being carried across the white runway of an airport...the noise of helicopter blades whirring above and he couldn't see.

He stopped, was lowered on the ground...the whirl of the blades where a black blur.  He saw a silhouette above hime and he felt cold compresses against his eyes, smearing the sky and suddenly brightening the light above him.

Sir...you have got to stop moving...somebody was yelling at him.  His head was on fire and his leg was beginning to wail and there were heads above him...yelling.

He felt himself lifted up again and was placed into the UH-60 medevac...inside he noticed the top of the helicopter and hear the commands of the pilots and the crew...

They were trying to hold his arms, they were wiping away at his face and they were trying to insert an IV into his arm and he just kept trying...reaching underneath his body armor plate and trying to unbutton his breast pocket.

Sir, they kept yelling...stop..stop moving...

And he kept moving his hand across his chest...until somebody...a crew member....cut off his velcro and the armor came off and he found the button and could finally open the pocket.

His hand was bloody...his blood, from his skull and his face and his ankle...he remember thinking that it looked like paint...but as he unbuttoned the flap he felt the plastic.  He felt the familiar.

He pulled out the picture of her.  He held it up, one eye barely seeing it and he kissed it...smearing it with his saliva and his blood and he clutched it.

It was enough for him.




She was wondering why the picture of her had smudges...crinkled.  He had handed it to her in the hospital.  Before he had gone back to sleep.

She held it now in her hand...waiting in the lobby.  Of the hospital.  She hadn't seen him in years...and she wasn't ready for this.

Wanted Cravings

Feed me...the slow drip of desire distilling into veins like a drug from an IV bag...the way the warmth speeds through when the phone number turns out to be yours...quickening.  Heightening.

Touch me...in a crowd of watchers...a gentle polite acknowledgement...discreet.  A handshake, a clench...let it linger just an inappropriate second longer...let an eyebrow arch.  A knowing grin.  A familiar gaze.

Feel me...press close in an elevator...a subway car...let us move and align against the rhythms of of man-made machines...leaning in for balance, but the press of flesh beneath corporate clothes is familiar...a remembrance.

Soothe me...a hand on a shoulder...a delicate hug when the perfume of you is proximate...let me briefly inhale you like an anesthetic...numb me with your nearness...calming...familiar...longing...realizing it is now within my grasp...the slight weight of your hand upon me...attached to you...now attached to me.

Dare me...look across a room, look across a place...outdoors or not, stand like a challenge, face me with an ask...tell me where you want me...tell me what you want.

Amuse me...laugh at my words...smile at my gaze.  Find a common place of hilarity and throw your head back and laugh that gorgeous noise...fill my ear with song.  The sound of you.  Happy.

Spoil me...ask me about my day...find trivial items important...discuss a future...laugh at a past.  Share like the opening of a locket what you possess...what you keep secret...where your mind wanders in a sleepless night...just loitering in the dark, space and time slowly proceeding...what relaxes you enough to slow breathing and stumble back to slumber.

Want me...the alchemy...the mix of us...the combination...the exquisite puzzle piece that fits perfectly...a void for some time that is now repaired...fulfilled...quenched.  No longer thirsty.  No longer sore or stressed.  The absolute medicine.  Addictive.

Addicting.