Low Suns

Good morning...

tell me what you see...tell me how you feel...do you ache like I do...as the day begins.

A morning alone, 

but peaceful.  A quiet that is not quite as quiet when together...

When the room grows slightly brighter...the soft shape of you becoming more focused.

Morning is a color with us...the evening past, the empty morning...there is no sense of time except when together there is never enough.

So when our color emerges each new day and we are separate it is a lonely orange...

But it does represent a new one as well...another chance.

A sound of a voice, the carefully formed words in a note...an exchange.  

A reminder.

That the same damn sun is just as far away from me as it is to you...and perhaps that just makes us feel closer...even if it feels like you are so far gone right now.

So good morning...let us be reminded of our color.

Let us be reminded of our mornings.

And let us speed through the days until we find our next one.

Evening Trees

She turned the key on the back door of the restaurant,  felt the lock slide into place and tugged at the handle to ensure it was locked.

The night was concussive, tree crickets chirping their songs, the heavy humidity of July in Surry blanketing the still air...after the cool air in the bar it was warming to her.

She pulled out a cigarette and lit it, the brief match flare and the orange tip the only things near enough to see.  Further out she could find the one parking lot lamp dripping yellow light onto her car but here in the doorway it was very dark.  She preferred that.

She twirled a bit of her hair in her finger, a habit when she was thinking, the tendrils wrapping around her and she thought about whether or not she would shower when she got back.

katy-did,  katy-didn't

The sound of the chirping was loud, almost like from a concert's speaker, and beneath the blackened limbs she could see the tell-tale blinks of fireflies.

The river was beyond them, the void between work and home, and she knew the ferry was waiting for her.

It could wait.

She inhaled, letting the smoke infuse her and she closed her eyes against the evening.  She remembered some of things he had said in their last stay...straining to listen as if he was still whispering to her.

She exhaled, releasing the smoke into the air, and with it she started to relax.

She felt loved.  She felt at peace.

katy-did, katy-didn't.

In the dark noise she wondered when she would see him next...and if they would have the chance to share a pillow, share proximity.

Or if they would just greet...a brief hug.  Maybe a kiss near the ear.

Eyes sharing something that the mind already knew existed...maybe widening a little at the first glimpse of each other...like salt spilling out of its shaker the anticipation of a taste...a spice that was shared.  She drew in another puff of smoke, shorter...and started walking to her car.

katy-did, katy-didn't

The trees grew louder as she crossed the lot.  She exhaled and flicked the remnant and it arced in the air, orange sparks alighting and hit the gravel and flared briefly.

She pulled the car door open, no reason to lock it down here...nobody would steal it...nothing inside worth protecting.

She let the windows down and turned on the radio to a station near the beach...she thought about starting another cigarette.

She remembered the taste of his mouth, the shape of it...the contortions against hers.  She remembered once the collision of teeth in a moment.

She backed out of the space, the outside noise spilling inside the car, the bit of breeze in the movement, and headed towards the ferry pier, the sounds of the evening trees filling her ears and she could smell salt in the air...

katy-did, katy didn't

Polaroid

I've been looking so long at these pictures of you
That I almost believe that they're real 
I've been living so long with my pictures of you
That I almost believe that the pictures 
Are all I can feel--The Cure

The capture...how a moment can linger long after it happened.  The moment imprisoned.  A memory stamp.  The beauty of a picture is it is forever embedded...timeless.  But what it doesn't capture is what isn't seen.  The surroundings, the proximity of something just outside the frame.  The rest of the room.  The color of the sky nearby.  It is a time-box, a jewelry box, a container.  The picture is just that...a rendering.  It may not describe the mood but it may capture one.  It may not detect a temperature but it will convey one.

What happens when the beauty in person is so much better than the picture?  The picture becomes the second prize award...it is bittersweet.  The in-person is so glaringly better...so infinitely better.  But that goes away in a goodbye.  It disappears in a walk away.

Save me a picture.  Keep me a moment.  Give me a second.

The closed-eye kiss.  There is no visual...rather it is just a presence.  A pressure.  The mouth finds the terrain and maneuvers.  If lucky, if goddamn lucky it aligns, finds urgency, emotion...detection.  Solace.  Unimaginable visuals playing in the mind's eye.  Nothing could paint it, nothing could capture.

No pictures.  

But memories.  

Visceral, tongue-bit memories.

Yet somehow a picture can remind.

Can rewind.

Can put back in place a moment.  

Restore.

Return.

A picture can spark a memory like flint in a lighter.  A brief spark.  A slight flame.

It can burn.

It can burn.

A picture can burn and when we close our eyes we can still see it.

It can burn.

Mindful

Relax...

Breathe in...let a stillness overcome you, let your closed eyes find meaningless darkness, no distractions nor frustrations.

Feel stress molt off of you, purge, slide off, slough off...puddle around you.  Let your beating heart slow...calm, calming...


Such bullshit.

My mind is full of you...my mindfulness is imagining you here, breathing in you, heart against heart, fingers clasped together, legs against legs.  The perfect alignment, whether face to face or front to back.

In my mindfulness state I am less than perfect, full of flaws.  I am a weed, a nuisance.

You pluck me and breathe gently upon me, blowing wishes that scatter and float across the day, some true, some aspirational.

I decorate my mind with images of you, and I come back often, remembering...remembering.

Scorched

I

He remembered a roadside...they had been walking in the suffocating humidity of summer, the smell of the James river a nearby presence and she reached down to pluck a dandelion from its stalk in the dry uneven ground.  She managed to keep the tiny white delicate seed head intact and she blew against it gently, scattering the white eyelash shapes in front of her.

I made a wish, she said, continuing to walk down the rocky path.  She never told him what it was.  Beside him the river rumbled along, carrying whatever secrets and wishes it could afford.

II

He was now on a roadside, the brown flat terrain of Iraq devoid of contrast, just numbing sand and rock.  The platoon stopped at the outskirts of some unpronounceable village...just another slight bit of urban terrain warranting a brief inspection as they continued to provide security ahead of a larger force.  He walked to the water buffalo truck and filled his canteen.  The water spilled over his hands, staining the sand even darker.  He drank it guzzling, the heat a mad presence beneath his helmet.

In the crack of some of the village wall, growing between a gap where the dirt met the bottom of the stone a small bit of yellow peaked out.  It was a dandelion, about two inches long, and it was the color of the sun in summer.  It was the first time in country that he had noticed, and it was stark against the bulwark of the brick.  He remembered the eyelash shapes moving away from her in her wishful moment back in the States...he had the exact same wish now as he had before.

III

He remembered the sounds from the house cascading onto the porch...the dinner over, the dishes clanking against each other as collected, the faucet creating white noise in the sink...conversations growing louder to talk over the din.  They were outside in chairs, watching the very first fireflies alight.  She was actually smoking a cigarette...she found some in her brother's truck...she only smoked once in awhile (he told her she looked sexy as hell) but she did it either when she was extremely stressed or extremely relaxed.  He watched the orange burnt end flare when she inhaled, and her exhalation of pale smoke reminded him of those eyelash shape seeds from the dandelions, spilling over like a thousand wishes.  She had her hair pulled back.

IV

He lay against the track wheel of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, trying to spoon his MRE dinner without dropping it, the smudge of food mostly tasteless, a wet pulp almost that was neither warm nor cold.  The track was still warm, the air like a hair dryer on heat continuing to blaze the sky.  Across from him, in the shadows were the soldiers beneath an olive tree in a courtyard shaded and dark.  A few had cigarettes, he could see the outlines of their helmets and the stark orange of the lit ends...they moved up and down, pulled into lips, drawn, becoming lighter and more orange with the inhalations.  He reached into his pocket and pulled out the plucked dandelions from the day before...they were dying, the green stems growing browner...but the yellow petals were vibrant.  A few fell off in his hand at being touched.  He made wishes as these petals were brushed to the ground, making tiny, eyelash shapes of color in the sand.  

His wish was always the same.