Koi Tattoo

I ran my fingers over the smooth skin of his forearm, tracing the outlines of his colorful tattoo. I was overwhelmingly happy to be with him again. I sat close to him on the couch, holding on to his arm, my head on his shoulder, the way we had sat many times before.

When I opened my eyes to find myself alone in my bed, with my brother right in front of me, rifling through my purse, I was instantly consumed with disappointment. Aaron asked if I would go to Lafayette with him, but I was desperate to fall back asleep and into my dream again. Upon returning to sleep, there was not a single moment of Jeremy in my dreams. I was alone.

Dreaming of him only makes it harder. Although for the time that I'm asleep and 'with him', I am happy, when I wake up, his absence is so much stronger. I feel panicky that I can't see him and hear him. For a moment I feel as if these next 6 months are impossible. It is the worst feeling in the world.

Neon green

It stung like a violent wind that our memories depend on a faulty camera in our minds...

There are specific memories that I wish that I could capture and preserve perfectly, with out any trick of my imagination trying to embellish or lessen the moment.

Very early this morning, we sat side by side on a wet bench, barely under the cover of a tree across the path. I can hear the rain falling on the leaves, on the pavement, on his jeans. I can feel the cold drops on the back of my neck. I can taste the cigarette, smell the smoke. I want to savor every word he said, the feel of his head on my shoulder. Our feet side by side on the sidewalk. My hand on his on my leg. The song that he sang. I want it all, perfectly stored away.

I want to remember laying side by side on my bed, our feet on the ground, our hands over our own faces, not speaking.

I want to remember the feel of his heart beating through my shoulder as we sat on the couch, his head leaning heavily against mine, and his deep breathing as he slept. I want to remember the dread of his phone vibrating in his pocket indicating the cab was here to take him away for six long months.

I want to remember the heaviness of it, the impossible weight of goodbye.

Foolishness

There is an unfortunate madness about love. It gives love a proclivity for danger, for impossible risks, for hurt and sorrow. It fosters irrationality and has a way of creating illusion.

There isn't anything greater than it, really.

However, there is only one who loves right, and the rest of us are left to gamble with what we think we understand of love.

We will always be young and naive in this sense.

We will always be the subjects, and it will always be our master.

Lessons

I spent the entire day in Chicago yesterday, and it was a lot of fun, but it just left me wanting more. There is a hardly a place that I frequent in the city that does not have some memory attached to it. Most of the memories are very good, and some of them are more bitter than sweet. Most of the memories, whether good or bad, remind me of things that I want terribly and cannot have. Other memories remind me of things that I love, and will have for the rest of my life.

Either way, leaving the city for a few weeks and being apart from all of my friends has given me a new perspective, and is teaching me one of the hardest lessons that I have ever learned, and I am not being the most obliging pupil.

My heart has this terrible habit of always longing for things that it cannot and should not have. My heart is always seeming to misplace its priorities, always seems to put the wrong people and things first. It refuses to listen to my head, to logic, and reason, and what it should know from years of experience. My heart, silly thing, is impulsive, shallow, and most unwise. It is also deceitful, deceiving its own self, and fickle. My heart can instantaneously flux between hatred and love, bitterness, envy, and selflessness, control and submission.

In short, my heart is my greatest enemy, most of the time. Lately, anyway.

If it would only be still, and for a moment remember who loved it first, who loves it despite its great and numerous shortcomings, perhaps it could learn to love properly.

Memoirs

The smell of fresh-cut hay is one of my favorite smells. This is very telling of how I grew up as a kid. The smell takes me back to lazy afternoons in the hayloft above where my white horse dozed in his stall, occasionally whipping his tail about to fend off flies. As I drive down State Road 32, past newly mowed fields, the smell fills my car. When I smell hay, I smell leather; bridles and saddles. I smell fly spray, which always reminded me of the smell of Fruit Loops. I smell the distinct smell of sweaty horses and sweaty saddle pads.

When I drive past a horse grazing in a pasture, its face obscured in a mesh fly mask that protects its eyes from irritating flies, I can instantly remember the feel of the mesh in my hands, the faux fur that wraps around the horses muzzle and around his ears. I can feel the fine hairs of his forelock slipping through my fingers as I pull it out from under the mask. I can feel the velvety softness of his tapered muzzle under my fingertips.

As I continue to remember, I imagine hooking my fingers through his halter, and pressing my forehead against his, sans fly mask. I imagine the feel and smell of his breath as he exhales deeply. I can feel his upper lip working over the top of my shoulder, where my neck and shoulder meet, his whiskers tickling me.

It has been seven years since I watched a stranger's trailer take my horse away. It has been 12 years since I first sat on a pony and took a riding lesson. Yet I can remember those sights and smells, the feelings and textures as if it was yesterday.

Summertime, summertime

I spend most of my day reading and wishing. A small portion of the day is devoted to job hunting and working my tedious Craigslist/Rentjuice job. Right now, I sit on the porch swing on my grandparents front porch. Across the street at the small basketball court, four boys are shooting hoops, swearing loudly and talking smack. Another car pulls up and three more boys pull up. Instantly, shirts are taken off, greetings are exchanged. The ball diamonds next to the courts are empty and quiet, with the exception of a few birds pecking about. The grass glows in the setting sun, save the places where the houses cast their shadows. Down the sidewalk a father and daughter work on tending the lawn. The little girl must be four or five, and her blonde hair radiates like a halo about her face, the sun illuminating the stray light strands that frame her round cheeks. She deftly maneuvers a rake two times her size, mimicking daddy. Dogs barking are heard from all corners of town. A four wheeler revs in the distance, down by the post office. Mr. Utterback peddles by on his bike, his twin boys in tow in a small cart following behind. Father and son start a game of catch with a football in the diamonds, and a girl sits on the far side on the yellow and green bleachers with her dog. Pick up trucks roll loudly buy in a small town consistency. It all seems picturesque, small town America as it should be. Straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting.

There seems to be no care of the pollution and destruction of the Gulf of Mexico, no hint of a war in the Middle East, of the rising crime in Indianapolis, just an hour away. There are just missed rebounds, "More time on the playground, daddy!", and a tumble off the tricycle.

Pick-up games of basketball, a turn on the merry-go-round, and slightly tattered American flags reflect the simplicity of the idea of the 'American Dream'.

Dichotomy kills.

Every drink numbs me. I do not even recognize the girl who stares blankly back at me from the mirror. Dichotomy kills.