June in November

The sun is pouring in my open windows. It reflects off the scattered beer bottles and religious candles. Today I was going to start my morning with a walk. Get blood flowing, heart beating, sweat a little and try to knock the recent haze out of my mind. Instead I am laying naked in bed. The blanket has been kicked to the floor and the flat sheet covers my right foot. I feel the folds developing in my skin and remember the sudden urge for exercise. It isn't enough to get me out of bed. I'll lay here for another fifteen minutes. A mix from this summer is playing. Suddenly I am walking through a strange neighborhood commenting on trashy yards and trashier things that happen in bed. I'm lost in this memory. Then its another memory, after a long night of vandalism, champagne and drugs. The sun is coming up, shining through my open windows, much like right now. But then I was holding someone else, tracing shapes on her skin of dreams long lost and places I used to live. Whispering things you hear in movies or sitting on park benches. I'm not getting out of bed. Let the gardeners do their work. Let them try to rouse me from this life raft too big for just one. Today I will show them. I'll pull the blanket up over my face. I'll read a short story about a woman who gets left in a motel and man who likes to get stabbed. I'll ignore text messages from coworkers who need my help, women who want my attention, and friends who want to know what happened to me. I'll masturbate thinking about all the times I wasn't alone in this bed; how one liked a hand here, another wouldn't look away, another made me think twice about ropes and sometimes it took all I had not to cry, cum, or leave. I'll change the mix and make sure the saddest songs ever play so when I fall back asleep I'll dream about sharing a new apartment in a new city with people I have never met. And I'll fall in love with some girl with short hair and a tiny nose. I'll blow all my money on things I think she'll love, so she'll love me. But all she wants is me to cook her dinner. But I sold my pots and pans for gold she will lose at a party while kissing my best friend. So I'll settle on a drug habit and the ability to fly. I'll grow a huge beard, sleep in a tree and shoot dope in the most beautiful parts of Yosemite. And everyone will say I remember when he used to get up, go for walks, buy spray paint and fall in love every other day. Those were the days.

construction

Everything is changing today. The neighbor is getting a new roof. Someone down the street has a bunch of men climbing in and out of trucks with tools. They are tearing down, replacing, building up, patching, painting and making something look different while functioning the same. A lot of people are doing this too. They get their stickers, their badges, and the ability to stick their nose up at me just a little higher. That is fine. The things that matter to me are still here. The green hasn't left the trees yet and the cloudless sky shows me there is still a blue that makes me smile. It thrusts me back to a day of laying in the yard one day after work. I was laying in the grass, writing lyrics to song, thinking about how much in love I was, and wishing I was on the plane flying overhead to anywhere. That's the feeling that is here now. I am getting anxious. I'm sizing up things, mentally building boxes for the things in my room; for the moving truck or the landfill. It feels like a neighborhood of exhausted avenues. Everything feels like things that should be thrown away. Everything is changing today, just like it did yesterday. I need trash bags for the differences.

The side of the house.

Bite your lip. Breathe deep. Hold your breath. Shift your weight from right to left. Roll your eyes at the jokes and advances. Mimic the hands; hips for hips and necks for necks. Press your body hard into another. Retreat as soon as you can. Count the quiet moments in four feet of space. Leave your drink in the care of a stranger. Be strong, for a second. Then crumble. Repeat out loud the things you repeat to yourself when no one is watching. Fall back to the language of your mother; secrets like these won't break now. Moan. Pull away. Throw flattering statements at the brick wall supporting you in hope they stick. Tease. Only tease yourself. Review the steps to deflecting criticisms and questions concerning all of this. Plan the escape route. Get lost. Get left behind. Leave all on your own.