a few blocks from where i work is an apartment where i used to spend the free time i don't have anymore. it's an old one and if you take a tour of the city the guide will say it's haunted. i'm not sure it's true, spent enough drunk nights there to feel safe. safe enough. always safe enough.
the bottom of a tequila bottle has never seemed so promising as it does now. full of secrets i'll only know after one. more. shot. one. more. shot.
when you sleep all day, waking up is like a dream. your body is so used to your dream world, reality seems fake. the color's were too bright at work, and the coffee smelled to strongly of morning for the 4pm shift. i sometimes find myself missing things i hate. the way she is, right before we fall asleep, all clingy and just... there. the way she is, right after we make love, all clingy and just... there. the way she is before she leaves. distant. not there at all.
i'm not the praying kind, i'm not even sure there's a god up there protectic us or damning us. but i can't think of what else to do. i send money. i go to those fucking benefits with my parents in tux-es with my hair combed back. but what money will save them now?
it's hot and sticky and i've never wanted rain this badly. she left this morning, sometime early before i was really awake. able to comprehend what exactly was happening around me. i woke up again later. cold sheets, cold coffee, no note... not this time. i need her approval. i've never needed anyone's approval not even my parents who fund my vodka and my home. i need her but i don't want her. don't want her lies or her truths, her self-righteous "but i love you alexander and no one else does, not like i do" smiles. i could compare her to a drug, maybe, if i was in the mood for comparisons. i could say i was addicted, sick, maybe, if i was in the mood for melodrama. but the point is this: she's beautiful and i've always been attached to beauty.
j'adore she whispers in the darkness of our not yet morning copulating, not knowing that it doesn't mean love, it conveys obsession, if only we could learn all the nuances of the languages we don't know in a moment. we roll until i'm on my back, vulnerable, but she's small, how much damage could she do? i forget to protect my heart. she knows how to move her hips. it's like dancing except the sheets are constricting, cotton, 250 thread count, soft enough you can sleep naked, we will, maybe, if she decides to stay. last night she left, before the sun rose, shedding light on our very not-catholic and yet very adam and eve-esque nakedness. but the monday before she stayed, new mexico sun tanning her skin dark, this isn't new mexico though, and she stands out in this world of debonair lovers. new york's skyscrapers can't hold her, not even eye, bread from similar cloth, can hold her to me. her flight leaves in a few days, back to the sweltering desert where the air is heavier than the girls. i'll forget her then, i promise myself, get on with my lonely life.
i was watching the water today, watched it come close, close enough to touch almost or if i wanted to. watched it slide away, away like everything else in this crazy, mad, spinning world. away like the girlfriend i have back in silver springs, new mexico, sitting on her porch, glass of lemonade, hand outstretched, always expecting me. when's a good time to say "never coming back". away like my dear, sweet mother, up north, rhode island where the lobster is best, waiting, waiting, for her only son to pull up in his rumbling car. can't ever say "never coming back," because don't we all go home at least once before we die? away like the fathers and grandfathers i no longer know, easy to say "never coming back" we aren't destined for the same afterlife, they are much better men than i, and here I am on the ocean, breathing salty air, and thinking of all the people i never treated right. what kinds of thoughts are these to be having, beautiful day, beautiful water, and nothing but sadness everywhere. in a minute i have to get up, have to return to the apartment i love, the only thing i've ever loved, i have to put a wall between me and this ever sifting sand, this ever shifting water. always building walls it seems. there was a girl at the bar last night. she smiled the way i suspect all girls do, when they know that someone somewhere loves them. that "i like you but i like him too" secretive smile, where you feel let in, but really you are further from your goal then you'll ever really know. she talked about old streets in poland, and cell phones and a song on guitar and i found the juxtaposition enthralling or abrasive, can't remember now. annie. she wants a new name, wants one that screams originality, and i found that disturbingly cliché. I have her number, burning a whole in my back pocket, can't bring myself to throw it away. i am a packrat of acquaintances.
i've been avoiding this internet craze for awhile now, but, lately, i've been wanting to share my writing with others, maybe meet a few people along the way. we'll see how that goes.
