That Soggy Winter Night,
when the rain beat heavy on the old wood of the cabin
and the air smelled like dust,
and candles,
and fresh moss,
and wilted leaves,
and anticipation.

It all started with us listening to the rain through an open window.
Those hours of morning when the sun still hides,
smoking cigarettes ,
and smoking homegrown,
and drinking water ,
and whiskey,
and sharing unmistakable looks,
that both of us where too eager and scared to put words to.

So we pretended to both be tired.
So we could lie down together,
and huddle close,
and save warmth,
like burning coals rapped together in a blanket of ash.

This was the hesitant placation of our urges.

But it had to be more subtle,
more drawn out,
than both of us wanted it to be.
So I waited until I couldn't stand it anymore
reaching out a single hand from the opposite side of the bed
to see if it was ok.

You grabbed it,
and pulled yourself closer,
as if you were pulling yourself away
from the brink of a deadly mountain’s cliff.

We stayed wrapped together all night,
the mess of your hair sticking to my face
because I stayed wrapped around you.

It wasn't until the sun came up
that both our heartbeats settled
and my muscles and mind relaxed
and our breathing slowed
and we could slip into a dream
with bodies weak from wanting.

I’m thankful for your cold shoulder
Turned away from me.
Unflinching.

I’m thankful for your taste in movies
Satirical horror.
Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes.

I’m thankful you didn’t kiss me
Lips pressed together tight.
Unwavering.

I’m thankful for the goodbye hug
Lopsided and callous.
Approximately 3 seconds.

And mostly, I’m thankful
You decided you were through with me at 10:56.
And not 10:57.

Because I made every green light
On the way home from your apartment.

I returned to the place
where I use to escape
from the pedestrian affairs
of life in suburbia.

Many nights spent
collapsed on the pavement
swapping humdrum stories
of teenage angst.

It was the end of a road
just north of town
with nothing but swampland
in two directions.

Far enough away
from the sprawl of the city
to understand quiet
without getting lost.

An abundance of stars
made us feel insignificant
and the freedom of isolation
gave us confidence and strength.

It was balanced and beautiful
like we were, back then,
just the right amount
of elation and confusion.

So then it was silly, I guess
for me to expect
that a place like that
would still be the same.

It's a strip mall now,
sleek and amalgamated
and the unkempt sawgrass
replaced with pigmented mulch.

"Do you know why i pulled you over?"
" Suspect it was because of my speed."
" Did you realize how fast you where going?"
" Nearly 75 miles per hour, you see, I noticed that concrete median just ahead and realized I have been suicidal lately, so I unbuckled my seat belt, glanced at my blinking airbag light letting me know this would be a for sure thing and gunned it. Then of course you turned on your lights, and i knew there's too big of a chance of making it to the hospital alive with a cop this close by when it happens so i decided to pull over. I thought may be suicide by cop would work, but i don't have a gun with me, so the worst that would happen is i would get tazed, and you'd have to do paperwork, so i abandoned that about the time you reached my bumper. To tell you the truth, you, and solely you, for multiple reasons, may have been the only thing that kept me from killing myself tonight. Now that I've had some time to think about it, I don't think dieing would help either, wouldn't help me or anyone else, so i think the best thing would be to just go home and sleep it off, sleep until i start to feel something again."
".......Life gets hard sometimes and you can't let it get a hold of you like that. Where do you live?"
"about ten blocks up"
"I'll let you go, but I'm going to follow you there just to make sure you get home in one piece, and in the morning check yourself into somewhere."
"I'll make sure to."

Listen people, as this pertains to you, in general. The ***** that I give are decaying, exponentially, in relation to you. (you as a mass, an amoeba, a faceless many or few, however you wish to view the individual, inner, outer, oneself, selfless or self-centered, arrogance and humility all set aside)Forward from this point it has been planned, by my conscious and I, through negotiation (talking to myself is demoralizing, ruthless ******* I am at all ventures) an equation for the ***** I'll be rationed (or deprived of) has been set forth by it (or him, the tones are erratic and stances inconsistent, better I find to leave it faceless, a mass inconceivable in ways and form) to follow said equation.
F= i(1-e)^L
The variables within being explained to me as meaning such:
F is for *****, obviously-the end result-what we in essence: are after. Having to wade through the entire convoluted mess my conscious has made of it.
i is innocence, the starting point or amount- the source from which all my ***** flow.
e if experience, the rate of decay through time-experience being what seems to cause it-hardening innocence, slowly but surely, eliminating ***** all together.
L is life, the time: The span in which the degradation of ***** can and will occur, upon its end, the equation is erased, and given to start anew somewhere else, with someone else.
In layman’s terms the entire equation is doomed to begin with. Innocence, mine or anyone else’s is an impossible thing to quantify: measure. It’s sun tea from grandmothers’ mason jars on summers evenings, nostalgia and ignorance, something individual and immeasurable.
Leaving us to ask it (my conscious) what the hell it was even thinking. It, of course, doesn’t think in logical terms, only hides under the pale ruse of them.
My experience is a little easier to quantify. Seeing death, hearing the crack of an animal’s entire body under a tire, the last screech of death, Ruined lives or families, the illogical kindness of strangers, the warmth of another human’s body. All these things play crucial roles, leaning towards one way or another, another being this case, another being negative.
My time (L) is limited, leaving us to ask what relativity it has on the entire equation. The sad and short domain of a cliff dive graph. The two dots that predict importance, and my relativity the graph, the system this equation functions within, and its rules as a whole.
It says to work it through, to find myself, to change some spiral I can’t track or imagine.
It doesn't think in logical term, it left me confused without the tools to claw my way out of existence, and this sterile version of it.
It doesn't know (or care) what’s going on, it only hides behind the pale ruse,
of giving a ****.