Fragments

This is when I think of him:

When I brush my teeth
Eating an avocado
In the cities of New York, C_____, N______, Chicago, Louisville and Ann Arbor
In the state of Mississippi
At rest areas
In sex shops
While driving long distances
While shaving my ass
While brushing my hair
While toweling off after a shower
As I wake up
As I go to sleep

***

Looking across the table at Beautiful Girl and Zurich, her skin so smooth and soft, his eyes so blue, her laugh so lovely, his face so open and unguarded (rare). I sniff the beers they try, none of them suit me, Miss Half-OJ-Half-Ginger-Ale-Please. I will see him soon, outside of her company. I will see her soon, outside of his company. I will see later but still soon my best friend, a continent away. My best friend has also recently broken up, finished by her get-over-the-previous-bad-relationship-boy, finished the contents of her liquor cabinet and the contents of her medicine cabinet in one go, not enough to do the job. I call her, I tell her, wait for me. We’ll bring boltcutters and jump from Hornsey Lane Bridge together, the city spread out before us. I am only half joking, only half cheering her up. That’s the half that would never choose plummet-to-a-sharp-stop as the means. Nor guns, gas, water, automobile. Not sure enough, too messy, too protracted, can’t stand not being able to breathe. (Might as well live, right DP?)

I’ve never been drunk.

I’ve never been high.

What I am is addicted to drama. Addicted to mattering, meaning, having the cock that tells me so.

Maybe coke would be less draining. Probably more expensive. Maybe not.


***

I am in the company of others 24 hours a day, and have been since New Year’s. Down side: hard to carve out time to write, to connect with lovers, to think, to be all moody. Up side: hard to carve out time to be all moody. Hard to inconvenience others with feelings, tamp them down, bottle them up.

I am sharing a bed with Beautiful Girl – in the night, I lie with my head next to hers, smelling the scent of her face cream. I am too tired, too tiny, too alone to wrap my body around hers, throw my arm over her shoulders, place my hand on her belly. But even so, her smile is the first thing I see in the morning. I head for [the workplace] with a carload of people, we go inside, we work together in a way that makes me remember how I love my work. Power Girl is there beside me, and Beautiful Girl, and Secret Scientist and Hairline Boy, and all of us are focused, intent, something larger than us is happening, something larger than can happen alone.

We share dinner together, passing back and forth to the salad bar, we cluster by the restrooms chatting in little groups. Zurich is heading out to meet a friend in the city, he hugs me, he leans in and whispers, “I’m not shooting myself in the foot am I? I’m not missing out on you-me time?” No, I tell him, this time, no time alone. Next week? Midwestern City? We make tentative plans.

I am ridiculously pleased.