Tuesday

--Strangely delivered and unexpected news that brings me suddenly in mind of the real world existence of someone lost.

And it’s the first time in a long time that I’ve been afraid of going home alone. It’s the idea of the apartment and me in it that I find absolutely daunting.

As I teach my evening class, I think: I don’t want this to end.

I don’t want to stop talking.
I don’t want to start thinking.

--But I stop talking. Class ends. I start thinking.

--It’s Tuesday night.

I should get out of here.
I should take a drink with somebody.
I don’t have male friends like that. I barely have male friends.

And there are some girls with whom I could go drinking but that would be complicated by the things boys and girls want from each other.

--And it’s quite here, despite the sound of traffic; and it’s dark, despite the moon; and it’s cold.
I know how I will sleep and how I won’t.

And I know how much trouble I’m in. I guess at some point or another we all recognize that about ourselves.

And I suppose it is possible, and quite necessary, that we forget.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--I go to the grocery store.
There is the pretty girl behind the register.
I say to her: It always makes me happy when I come here and see that you are working.

She says, I don't think you mean that.
But she knows I do. This makes her smile; this makes her happy.

It is momentarily fulfilling.

--There are steps that are irretrievable. There were things you did not do and will never be given the option to do again.

You were strong enough to feed her.
You were strong enough to punish her enemies.
But you were not strong enough to put your head on her shoulder.
Or your heart fully in her hands.

(There are no beautiful women. There are no strong men).

--And I ask myself: What did you think:
that she had stopped being a person?
That she was just some character in the story of your old life?

That horror story? That love story?

Of course she reamins in the world.

--And I think of the new girl and how our situation nearly duplicates the way the mess from which I try to imagine I’ve recovered began. There was her boyfriend then, that false security with the idea that he would act as a buffer between me and that which frightens me.

Perhaps they even look the same, these girls.

If this is the cycel of my life, I want to break it.

--And you promise yourself, the next time you move toward a hand extended from the near darkness, you will do so out of strength and not weakness. That will be a real embrace.

--Groceries to unload.
Carefully.
Everything balanced just so.

Do they belong here, these freshly boughten things?
The tortilla wraps, the oatmeal, the bag of apples, the bottles of beers?

(and if you recognize the oatmeal, and if in that reference you find yourself moved, then you are lost with me)

--There’s nothing you can eat that will make it better. There is nothing you can drink that will drown it out. There’s nothing that you can buy that will replace it.

And the night is very calm. And there is not enough noise in the world.

--There's an upsidedown wine glass in the sink, and you can't imagine moving it.
The world is fragile and haunted.
You think it is better to remain perfectly still.
Like a person buried but not dead.

And you wonder if bears dream when they hibernate.
And you wonder if they don't if you could escape like that.

You wonder: from what coma could you emmerge clean and unburdened?