Monday, June 11, 2007

interlude: where happiness is a gutted passage

i tried to forget you, as i picked up my book on sunday night and set out for a stroll down cambridge street. i wanted to forget how to love. i thought the best way would be to embrace the solitude i crave and can’t stand – to exhale where the stars shine the brightest -- where there’s only two blocks between the remembrance of who we are and the noncommittal energy of one-sided expectation. fine. maybe it’s four blocks.

the street is relatively quiet, and the weather reflects exactly who i am right now. partly cloudy with a hint of rain at 11:30 p.m. the book I’m holding reminds me of you -- a desperate fiction where the plot snakes, and i feel one step behind every turn. i run my finger up and down the spine as i pass one of the grittier pubs along the avenue and listen to the rock music bristling forth with pangs of rage.

i light a cigarette. god, how does giving the benefit of the doubt relate to enjoying another person? the world’s not big enough for that. or, perhaps it's not small enough.

the cacoethes of my thoughts spread like eggshells over the sidewalk, when suddenly the girl riding her bike down the street hops off to take inventory.

you can’t scatter your feelings all over the sidewalk like this, she says, looking down with consternation.

why not?

you’ll attract attention from the traffic, she says, as she takes my hand and brings it toward the sidewalk to clean up the mess.

go out and fuck, she says with a smile and shrug, as she mounts her bicycle and continues down the way.

down the street, i stop and peer in through the window as a band jams all lost and idealistic; hung-over, prophesying America. i stare at the dancing just long enough to hide the affliction of my history and present. trying to avoid unhealthy things like thinking of the future.

i sit on the bench on the corner of the street and begin reading. the streetlight above cuts shards through the branches of the tree, and i read about the events leading up to the death of a certain fictional character. santiago nasar, to be precise. after a while, i decide it’s time to go home. once back, i go out onto the deck to smoke and read a bit more. i wonder what you’re doing at that instant in time, as a light flicks on in the apartment diagonally to the left. a brunette girl with her hair up, wearing a crimson t-shirt pirouettes beneath the spider web covering the light overhead. for a moment, I forget about us; about expectations and relationships.

- ah. – dancing, i had put the light out, so in the dark we danced. dancing and giddy, i kissed her to begin and consummate the beginning in a dark room i held her hand and we moved. she spilled. on my thigh her hair and her arms around my neck warm and i held her waist spin and balance and throb and in our eyes it didn’t matter who would hurt or be hurt and dancing it was so much the me and moving hot. Ah.-

i then turned off the light on the deck and went in.