Strange to be a few barstools down from you at O'Brien's. Yet, a decade away from you in time. Tim is handsome. I doubt that means anything coming from me, but I didn't exactly talk to him. Not much else I can say. You're still out of his league. Always dating down. Thank you.

When Tim went to the bathroom, I wanted to cut through the smoke and tell you I love you. Not in a gesture of romance. Not in an act of heartbreaking bravery. Really just to say it. I haven't said it to anyone in such a long time. I love you.

Before I saw you, I went to visit my sister at the hospital. Jessica switched to the night shift last week. She gets the pleasure of telling cranky old men no more Vicodin, and in act of mercy, God grants her a week of sunrises to be viewed from the wide windows of the 13th floor.

The nurse tending the desk told me Jess was making the rounds. I creeped into four or five dark rooms before I found her. Might've even woken a bald woman in an iron lung. Do they make iron lungs anymore? Looked like an iron lung.

Anyways, I found her in a room grabbing a meal tray and putting on its "kosher" lid to be trashed. "Hey, man. Henri, this is my brother Josh. Josh this is Henri," Jess introduced. I shook his hand.

He looked up at me through black, thick-framed glasses. Henri had one silvery capped tooth that became visible when he smiled. The smile crumpled and wrinkled his face like an old newspaper.

"If you want you can just stay in here," my sister said. "Henri's a cool guy and I need to go grab his sleeping medication."

I told her sure. Sat down next to Henri. He looked to be in his early sixties. Very lean. Sharp jaw. Large knuckles. If he ever stepped in a ring, I bet he made a hell of a fighter.

Henri removed his glasses. Placed them in his lap next to a collection of Chekov stories.  I told him I really liked Russian literature. No matter a person's class they always seem to have servants. A butler to tell them their molding slice of bread was ready, and a maid to serve it.

"I feel just as lucky. Your sister has treated me like I just walked in from Hollywood Boulevard." I asked him what he was in for -- like it was prison.

"Fractured hip. The most cliche of old-timer injuries. Not proud of it," he laughed softly. "I have been biking across the country and a little white sedan didn't take much notice of me -- well, until after they hit me."

****. I asked why he was making the journey. His wife died in the summer. His life stopped. "Life is measured in the stops," he told me. "When your job, your hobbies, sometimes even your friends all become irrelevant and time doesn't matter -- you've stopped. I locked myself in our house for a month. Told the kids I didn't want them to visit. I got the best woman on the planet. I don't feel guilty for taking her. Because believe me, I had to earn her," he looked to the side for a moment. Staring at the black television screen.

Then he told me that life may be measured in stops, but greatness is measured in starts. Journeys. I thought you'd like that, Ms. Anna. Henri then asked me that terrible question, "got a wife?" as if to make sure the conversation didn't center on him.

I told him I had gotten a divorce three years ago. He asked if I had moved on. I confessed, I've hobbled. His heavy brow grew heavier. His hands pulled the bed table to the middle. He asked me to hand him a pen off the dresser. He uncapped it. "What year were you born?" 1986.

"Okay, and you were divorced in 2009?" Yep. "And you haven't started over?" Nope. Henri wrote something on the napkin and pushed the bed table to me. With a shiver, a weight passed through me -- going upwards. The napkin read,

"Josh
1986-2009, 2012-"

"Don't waste three years of your life again."

I only went to the hospital because Jess has a friend she wanted to introduce me to. Her name is Macie, I think. Macie called in sick. I'll call it a fair trade. I've written too much again. I hope you read this late at night, and when you awake, I hope the coffee tastes new. Your newspaper isn't wet with rain. I hope your journey starts or restarts. You deserve the same unknown energy that seems to be coming from under the concrete.

skyscraper man on seattle time
looms in the corner of swan lake and fry
untouchable denim untouchable blueblack plaid jacket
     he's put together with clothespins
     he's put together with stipends
     he's crammed between taxi cab book ends
skyscraper man on seattle time
stoic as the jet engines roar by
all his friends are magazines all his friends currentbrief
     he's got a little future
     he's got a few dimes
     he's got no father to call out the lies
skyscraper man on seattle time
watches smog children kick ***** on concrete
vulnerable under trees writes his novels in purpleink
     he's married once before
     he's read crucifixion lore
     he's returned his money to the store
skyscraper man on seattle time
looking through spectacles of ***** and brine
the rain falls hard the breeze sweet on the leaves
     he's emptying the soul of modern rock n' roll
     he's emptying the tray of ashed thought
     he's emptying the bank account cold
skyscraper man on seattle time
sheds crinkled skinmemory like the cicada
a twin-sized deathbed deathbed in apt. 203
     he's nothing.
     he's ever.
     he's happened.
skyscraper man on seattle time
carbon copied and eternal as saltwater as rust
invisible and tapping at the runrain window
     he's nothing.
     he's ever.
     he's happened.
skyscraper man on seattle time
climbs himself to the cosmos lightheaded perfection
ethereal visions of fullbloom love and legacy with measure
     he's nothing.
     he's ever.
     he's happened.

Here is a truth:

We may draw lines around a thing,
but they will never be more
than tricks of the eye.

The shapes of things are blurred
and shift too often
to properly map.

Relax.

Rules and nomenclature
ain't no fun, and
bean counting leads to  
indigestion.

Praise the spells and bless the charms,
I found April in my arms.
April golden, April cloudy,
Gracious, cruel, tender, rowdy;
April soft in flowered languor,
April cold with sudden anger,
Ever changing, ever true --
I love April, I love you.

I know that isn't how my grandmother would want me to remember her. Hell, the last time you saw me, I was fifteen pounds heavier, unkempt, and I was wearing that awful, low cut v-neck that made my chest appear a bit too supple. Wish you didn't remember me that way. But you do. But I do. You can't redact the past. Believe me. I used up every black marker in Oklahoma County trying.

You're dating a chef. By your lovely description, I could see the tendrils of spiraling capellini. Smell the buttered ciabatta. Were there candles? Did you whisper over the wine glasses? I hope there were candles. Cinnamon candles.

I actually cooked last night. Cajun tilapia and wild rice. Easing back into it. I've been living off canned vegetables for two months. Peas and carrots mostly. I'm going to assume if you and I shared this conversation in person, at this juncture you would whisper over wine glass, what was the occasion?

Heather called last night. The dancer. She needed a place to sleep. I guess her Craigslist roommates, those two shifty-eyed boys from Nevada, bailed on the 30th of September and the rent came due on the first of October. She hadn't paid it. Evicted. For a night, my room was adorned in all manner of frilly things and five pairs of heels. She left everything else in her car. She explained the decorations as proof of employment.

Don't worry. I didn't go there. Though, she thought I would too. After staring over her head at the beige wall behind her for two hours with my *** hanging off my twin-sized bed -- her lying in the middle -- I tried to move her to the east. She took it as an advance. "I'm not on birth control and I don't want a relationship," she said. Are any soft women left?

I knew when I picked that tulip from the neighbour’s yard
that I wasn’t just killing a flower but something inside of me.
I didn’t know what it was, then.


(innocence.

that’s what it was.)

I didn’t know why I told them that I found the flower that way,
broken and left to rot and “all I did was save the poor thing!”
it seemed natural to weave this story rather than confess.

I felt bad about taking that flower. for stealing someone’s
pretty pink petals
that they’d undoubtedly cared for,
pruning and watering,
that’s why they looked so good.
that’s why I picked the best of the bunch.

they knew I did it.
I insisted otherwise, and received a slap on the wrist
no more severe than when I’d pushed my little sister
or spilled glitter on the new carpet.
but this wrist-slap stuck with me.


I’d discovered more than the sweet smell
of pollen or nectar or chlorophyll seeping
out the snapped portion of the stem.
when I told this lie I’d felt a joy in me that as a four-year-old
I couldn’t explain
but it made me warm.

I inhaled the shame and drowned in guilt and I thought
of how I could do this again and not get caught.

I was addicted.


and I knew it, then.