The hour was late, and
soon to be later.
The minutes devoured the seconds.
Leisure was my antidote to a long day's madness.
Then I found her, or she found me.
She cast a spell on me in the witching hour.
Her gaze was possessive of me.
Premonition was her touch.

I know not how she crossed the room.
What mattered is she was in my lap. Summoned.
Yet, was it I who lingered, nose at heel?
You can't question the magic.
We are the agents of fate;
we are deciding and directed.

I could never be a marksman.
I wanted her to kiss me: I talked about our parents.
I wanted to dance with her: I romanced the weather.
I wanted a way to reach her: I reach for her thighs.
Oh, how we all wish the target would welcome the bullet,
and to my surprise, she welcomes.
My defences evaporate into the smoke-filled air.
I take her hand. The edge of her lip curves.
That's all she wrote.

Sometimes, complexity is a burden, and simplicity is freedom.

A lifetime of unrequited passion was distilled in that night for us both.
We danced in controlled chaos: not knowing our bodies, yet fully aware.
Time ticked backwards and forgot to tock.
I lost my tie, she lost her sock.
Giggles, the sign of a fermented joy.
The joy of not knowing joy, true joy, and then having it.

It was love... wasn't it?
Yes, it was. It was not mature, sure, but it was. We knew it.
We sheltered ourselves from the world.
Time ticked forward and tocked with abandon.
I remember moments holding her, sharing in her warmth as she shared in mine. A communion for two.

I remember rings exchanged.
I remember the first fruit of her labor. Our labor.
A hand so small it felt like a stick shift.
Time ticked forward and, then

Silence.
I don't know when we stopped talking,
but she was gone.

My tears, some semblance of oceans forgotten, dotted the clothes of my baby rocking in my trembling arms.
It seemed pain was my daily meal.
I faced questions I never considered possible:
Will she ever come back?
Will I ever love again?
What if I can't love again?
What if I feel this pain forever?
...
What if she's dead?

Our life replayed like waves lapping the shore in my distant mind:
How the upbeat jazz descended to slow rock tunes.
"Oh babeh, your lipstick kiss is foreva, it's the red rose ova my grave!"
Our cyclical steps matching, lighting fires in our hearts.
Our arms coiled around one another, as if we were falling from some hallowed place... falling in love is scary.

We try to smile and remember the madness when we're sober.

We forget the things that are important sometimes... all the time.
We forget so much that we become these chewed up, gnarled bits of humanity, searching for our souls when they are right inside us. Incomplete, sure, but there all along.
We have that hollow wanting.
That grinding hunger, that hot thirst.
I don't know the cure for certain, but, the memories seem to know.

Let's stop searching for happiness. That's like searching for flight. What we need is the wings. It's not youth, it's not money. It's opportunity. It's innocence: the belief that things are simple, because they are.

Innocence led me to Rosie that night.
Compromise in the face of difficulty stole me away.

It was years later that I remembered the pain.
Laura got off the school bus angry.
"Boys."
When I got to the bottom of it, she was in the wrong.
She dumped him... for nothing. Because she could.

Waves of despair bubbled up from beneath my present: the calling of the past.
I almost strayed from my resolutions.

I was left with the thought, "She's just like her mother,"
but I left that thought forlorn,
because the truth is, I raised Laura,
and so,
maybe I'm the demon calling the angels sick.

Maybe we're all demons.
It makes sense. We all feel we've fallen from grace.
The devil you know smiles from the mirror,
it wears your face and crowns you king or crud...

Starve it to death, hang it on your sterling bow and
sail for the waking dawn.