I'm sitting on the sidewalk and it starts to rain
I like the rain
it's romantic

Flashback to a different sidewalk walk to my car arm in arm in the streetlights of the passing cars dancing through our eyes
we kissed
and the rain tracked teardrops down our cheeks
because god knew we wouldn't do it ourselves

through the storm in our eyes
lines blurred between object and malice
problems rose up from the primordial goo of my personality
evaporating into lust and distrust
my insecurities manifest like rainclouds in her independent sky

I'm sitting on the sidewalk and it starts to rain
I like the rain
it's romantic
numb phone plastered against my face

I told her she was ready to pull the trigger from date one
Her stalwart no's were a pressure like her fingers, rifling through the hair on the back of my head

I'm sitting on a sidewalk
the rain tracks teardrops down my cheeks.
because god knew i wouldn't do it myself.

I pull up to the house and don't recognize any of the vehicles. My mom is driving her new car she got after the accident she didn't tell me about because we don't speak as much as we used to.

It's the middle of the day and yet it's as if a darkness has worked its way between the walls of the home. There is one light. A motion light. Crunching steps activate it above the door. I am illuminated. The doghouse next to me is my reflection. Dark. Empty. Folding in on itself like a sheet. I enter and the house exhales a shallow, broken breath. Like a house of cards falling down. Like something is missing.

Obviously that something would be my dead grandparents.

My mother's voice greets me and I'm startled. The tone sounds awful cheery for someone who, as of 15 hours ago, doesn't have parents anymore. Exhale.

The house is the same as I remember. I was here last week for ***** sake. Here to watch my grandma. She never liked to be home alone after she got back from the hospital.
After part of her got back from the hospital.
After the hospital.
She was never the same after that. Only the same conversation with a skipping record.
Eat carrots to avoid ****** noses. (Yes grandma.)
You should move to Hollywood. (I'm not that good of an actor grandma.)
Your other grandma hates me. (She doesn't hate you grandma.)

We don't talk as much as we used to.
We didn't talk as much as we used to.
It's death in two parts.

We're in grandma's room now. Sheets are being folded. There's a coffee ring in a half drunk cup of coffee. She'll never finish it now.
Exhale.

An innocent question (Did you find her in the bed?) Opens a wound with turns into a story which bleeds into a card game where we used to have Thanksgiving dinner because my mothers eyes are cracking floodgates and she needs time to repair them before she drives home.
She lives alone.
And we don't talk as much as we used to.
Silence.
The sound of cards slapping a table.
My mother says that talking about what happened has helped her and her voice sounds like someone who as of 18 hours ago, doesn't have parents anymore.
Exhale.

I leave the house and it's.
Still. Dark. Black.
Every light is off. Even the dog is dead.

I leave the house and it's
empty inside. This time I don't mean metaphorically, I mean physically actually devoid of people, and I don't think this feat has happened in 35 years.

There's one light.
Motion light.
It turns on when I leave,
and then it never turns on again.

i think too much and when im with her i cant
and i like that

shes all walls and i'm only windows
and sometimes i think she looks inside me and doesnt like what she sees

i feel like muscles and lust and nothing but, and she assures me i'm not
i feel like i'm a footnote (she puts footnotes in all her essays) in the story of her life while she is a chapter in mine
and she assures me i'm not
but sometimes she says things to convince herself of what shes saying
and sometimes she leaves me breathless and sometimes she leaves me praying

Maybe we've just put our walls in different spots. It's like my ears are deaf and my lips are tingling when she kisses them

she's like a golem
a stone skin guardian against her emotions she wont let me see
but maybe we've just put our walls in different spots It's like my eyes are blind and my body shakes when she caresses it
she wakes only to the magicians touch
and i've never been good at magic

shes tired of my worries and excited by my body and this is an equation i'm not sure i like
I've always been good at math
my mind is calculating
a steel trap
it's cold inside and she is warm in my arms, like a promise I can't keep.

I want to buy her flowers, but i'm caught between building my nest and digging my grave and i often think they're one and the same. she wants to have fun and I want to have ***. she's touching my body while i'm reaching for her mind
but maybe we've just put our walls in different spots.

UUUUUUUUuuuuuuuuuuuuugggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh

**** this and **** that and im
dying and
crying and i hate this
******* brain i have where i
scream at it
just ******* enjoy this
because with each word
i speak
each
worry
in the breath of my throat i push her away
speaking leaks in our boat  
and lets
be honest
it wasnt a very sturdy boat to begin with
i need
my sledgehammer hands
destroy and rebuild
something that actually functions from
the rubble of the ruin
Build some ******* windows
a glass bottom boat
so I can always see the mistakes
i'm trying to leave behind
my
mind
scraping plaster
crumbling
and fumbling
stumbling darkness
and she feels like sunlight
she's bright
soft light through the blinds
film noir
rain
pain like kisses  
i'm the handprint on her skin
the bubble in her oxygen
and i used to be fun and we
****
just *******
**** **** fuckf
fuckf fukfcuffkcuc\f\ ff
f
f
f
c
fuflufc
fuuf
***
****
***
uf

i think too much and when im with her i cant

and i like that

His eyes lolligag across the words but he's not actually reading them.
You can tell because he turns a page, only to turn back, realizing that he didn't digest what he'd just read.

It takes a long time to read this way.

With one's mind elsewhere, anywhere
nowhere but here
Like a fly in amber
encased in this single moment of waiting for her
Feeling the car lights outside rub his back, but not in the scritchy scratchy way that she does it.

He clutches his phone
turns back a page
checks the time
actually registers these numbers
and wonders
if this is routine

Him, waiting in silence, alone in a restaurant, looking like some pathetic **** who never managed to make friends, food on the counter sitting as undigested as the words in his hands.

Her, on her way, late and always dissapointing

He turns back a page.

I had an *******.
Not because I'm some sick **** who gets off on girls crying
but instead, because I got to hold her in my arms one last time
I found it odd
that she was taking comfort from her insanity by confiding in the very person who had caused it
as if she were finding solace in the arms of her problem
and as the apocalyptic rain outside locked us in that car like a coffin I would have gladly been buried in
I remarked to myself that her smell reminded me of cherry blossom trees.
A tree that I don't think I've even even seen in real life,
much less smelled before.

When I was in Korea I wrote her an e-mail
It said something like
"Hey, I don't know if you care anymore but you were right all along and I'm just now realizing that"
I never sent it
but I didn't delete it either and so for days afterward it haunted me
My e-mail drafts folder screaming out the number "1".

After we were finished but before the dust had settled we spoke a lot about regret and she said things like
"I'm glad we tried but we both knew it would end up like this."
Well I sure as **** didn't. Why the hell do you think I tried in the first place.
I think it became very important to her not to be one of my regrets.
Which makes sense, right? No one wants to be a regret
and so I resolved that if she ever asked me if I regretted her, if I regretted us I would instead ask her a question in response.
I would ask her if I helped her in any way.
If I helped her take control of her nerves
If I helped her get a hold of her anxiety
much like a sexually frustrated boy holding onto a crying girl during a rainstorm
And if she answered yes to my question,
If she said "Yes, Mike you did help me."
Then I would answer her question about regret by saying no

I don't need to worry about that though.
I don't need to worry about her asking me anything
because since I've been back from Korea, she's said exactly three words to me.
They were said at a party of a mutual friend of ours about six months since we had last spoken.
The words were "Can you twerk?"

And if we take our imaginary camera now and shift it out of that house
down the street
to a new street
to a new city
to my street
to my house
to my room
to my laptop
to my e-mail drafts folder
it still screams out the number "1"

And as we stood in the circle of our mutual friends and poked fun at a ridiculous dance craze
something cut through the haze of alcohol that hung in the air in order to penetrate my nostril
and for a brief instant
I was reminded of a tree that I don't think I've even seen in real life
much less smelled before.

she's like sleeping beauty
and by that I mean
she's beautiful
and she'd rather be sleeping right now

Falls asleep instantly
eyes closed tight in between lines in our argument

let me give you a better example
and we shift the scene to a bedroom plagued by doubt
but despite that the sheets are soft comfort, liquid warm radiance
To the end of a conversation at the beginning of a night

Me: Did you know that?
Her: Yup.
Me: Well did you know you're beautiful?
Her: LOUD SNORING NOISES

But where am I going with this?

I don't know

I'm going to better days
to reminders
kissprint frozen on the window of my car

To the cutest little kick I have ever seen as an excited girl enters buffalo wild wings after working 12 hours

excited because I'm there

That's where I'm going.
Back in time to "she likes my hands despite the warts"

I don't know

back to my hands
let them be a hammock
so I can hold her
rocking
because she'd rather be sleeping

Because sleep escapes the day
escapes the people
and the way
I say
the thoughts that echo in her mind
she's horrible
guilty
fire
tired
knife wounds
twisting
resisting
the urge to ram my self righteousness down her throat

I gave her my coat
and she asked if I smoked
(because that's a deal breaker)
I told her no

and the next time she slipped her hand in my arm
and the next time she slipped her thoughts in my mind
slipped her hands through my hair
her tongue in my mouth
her lightning in my eyes

surprise
I don't know
I don't know
My hands are distilled comfort
drink them up
this might be a beer you actually like

I don't know

I don't know

If we work
If we can

go back to strained conversations in which I am dying and she is existing in the same place with another person because that's what she's all about

A kiss
Another
kisses close our mouths to the arguments

and a single text
drips back into my thoughts

"Please don't leave me."

And I wonder if I am speaking to her
or the depression
if she lets it be her face for a while
while her mind rests in the background of her life

Because she'd rather be sleeping.