While I am tending to my garden
I cast an embracing glance over at you
You tend to your affairs, I tend to mine
We both work in silence, side by side
The dirt digs into your fingernails
And you have specks of mud on your cheek.

I tend to this garden, I dig into the roots
I lose sight of you sometimes, the afternoon sun is hot
And the vague radiance casts mirages
The shadows are unreal, the heat is feeble and lazy.

Everything coalesces into one when you ask
If I have a minute to spare so we can
Talk about the weather
And last night's Seinfeld episode
I should probably get back to my garden, I have to dig out the weeds.

Well the lonesome undertaker sighs
His loathsome burden should suffice
Yet he still bows his head and cries
Well the chimney sweeper dusts his feet
And cartwheels into the street
While a Prince from his carriage leaps

There's nothing I should be missing
I should be on the beach reminiscing
Reading Proust and watching waves splitting
Well the hustlers ***** and the ****** hustle
Engines roar and the carts bustle
And the pointed shoes of my past jingles and tussels

And the city life I've left behind
Well I thought I wouldn't mind
But there's still something I need to find

I don't understand
everything that's happening to me
But i want you

We don't have to know anyone else, just us again
You sigh, look away
I can see it clear as day
I'm sorry, time breaks and sun rays are all I dream of
I'm sorry again, I didn't mean it

I stand there all alone
Diamonds in our hands
Do-do-do, do-do-do

Funny how it seems like yesterday
When I was looking out of place
Daydreaming of cigarettes
It's my wife, and it's my life
I'm still here, have you seen her?

So much is going on while I'm
Standing in the pouring rain
There are places I'll remember
And these memories lose their meaning
When I remember I'll lose affection

I'm cursed you see
I know I'll often stop and think about them
Standing in the pouring rain
If I can't trust you, there's no answer
And I won't be able to trust myself
And I'm sorry for romanticising you
I just want to be friends with you again
And make myself feel very small and unhappy

Because I'm older now
And everything feels a lot emptier
And I'm still churning out sad poems and then
Pretending I've grown since then
Standing in the pouring rain

We walked to the park together
We didn't hold hands but we did look at each other
Sometimes we looked at each other in the eye
Although that may have been a coincidence while we were
Crossing the street
We sat in the park and didn't speak
And I felt guilty but I didn't know it then
And then we walked home
And we didn't look while we were crossing the street
Because the streets were empty
And I was looking at you in my peripheral vision
And thinking about hoarfrost

A presence shimmers over the hollow deep. The roots of an oak tree dig deep into the grass, while the branches bend over backwards for the wind. Sometimes they even hold up flowers for the breeze to play with, almost most of the time they just drift down upon the grass, to become roots again. Once in a while though, they float over into the dark blue pool, where the fish are translucent and the children have skipped stones away from the shoreline. They rest upon the surface, and sink into the inky, spiralling abyss, occasionally swimming up for a breath of air and a ray of sun, before plunging back into the depths. It's hard for a flower lost in the void, but if you can float for a while, you can make out alright. Sometimes you can even find a nice lady flower, and flood her til you're paying out your nose for a lily pad near the shoreline and a textbook for a baby flower so fragile it might break if you touch it. Everyday you watch it sleep, you watch its little breaths and the rise and fall of its stomach, and you grow stronger in your cowardice. You might use it as a mirror later on, you think, you can measure your senility by the worry lines that appear on its face, by the deepening of its voice and the widening of its throat, by its decreasing smile as it loses faith in your divinity long after you stopped believing in it. It's a hard life for a floater, yes it is.
And then somebody finds you and drains you and your life is over before you can say flush.

We're in the park. It's perfect: two beers, wine in sippy cups, oily donuts, stupid jokes that make me feel lighter than air, can't believe the boys used to say I'd end up bad at romance. "You're wrong," I told them, "you're wrong, if winding up cynical and drunk and romanticising some abstract notion I'm too smart to understand is bad at romance, I'm Joni Mitchell." There's too much beauty to romanticise right now with you. Stupid conversations about very deep things and a dip I brought. Bees landing on flowers with rearranged patterns. Music drifting over a fence. I sit with my legs open and my hands resting on my thighs. I'm making a conscious effort not to cross my arms or shut myself off. I lean my head on your shoulder and analyse Better Call Saul frame by frame. You laugh at how confessional I am and tell me you admire me. Sometimes the bees don't get on very well with the flowers, but that's just the way times go now, isn't it? I walk in the middle of the street and greedily go home without a kiss. I'm not actually as calm or forgiving as my detached demeanour might suggest, but I smile politely and press on. The only thing I did wrong today was stare at you one too many times, or maybe one too little. Later, I sit in a dark room with a pulsating light and sip a woozy silly drink that doesn't make me feel lighter than gravity, but it does stop me from thinking about you for a second. It's a terrible sin not to think of you, I know, but sin gets easier as you get older. Maybe tomorrow, I'll tell my landlord how I really feel about him, and then try to repeat the past. The only real sin is to try go back, but you do what you can, I suppose. Sin is something you have to work at. First you do away with all your morals, then violate all your morals, then you bring them back and obey. It takes time, is what I'm getting at, long enough for two lifetimes. Nobody ever really ends up a sinner all the way, everybody's too busy being saved. You saved me when you looked at me and didn't kiss me, I'll never forgive you for it. Why don't you break my heart and close up my chest one more time just for good luck, after that I'll write you a romantic poem and go to sleep with my attention in pieces. In fact, break my heart one more time and I'll write you another confessional letter and lick the envelope. Maybe I'll let you take me for another day in the park with fish carved walls and roses and then back to your father's house for chips and a movie, okay Rachel?