Walking Home

"Is it going to snow?" "No."

Only cold rain pattering cement and sometimes dinging against metal as I walk my walk home. Someone on NW 20th has hung blue lights and a white lit star on their balcony, and I think "some people can make the holidays." The air feels less cold than damp, and I feel too warm for once in my jacket and scarf. Past the Starbucks and wished for summer and stealing morning papers from their entrance. I miss walking through the neighborhood and being able to point to the windows of everyone I know: our neighborhood. But you are gone, and you are gone, and I remain. The parameter of the power plant remains embarrassingly naked and sterile and can I miss what I never missed? I remember talking in the garden last August. She says it's almost fall, and will she fall in love?

I want snow. Still air. Everything frozen. Crisp. Somehow this reminds me of the cherry trees in bloom, as though summer approaches. I'm thinking of why the didn't works didn't work. I cannot decide if I have loved once or twice. I used to think that love felt like breathing. I always think of breathing. I used to think that the measure of love was whether you continue to love someone, even as you can no longer be in love with them. I do not know what I think now.

I can remember the mark of our loss of innocence. Not that. Years past; the first time we lied.

Last night he wore a t-shirt that said "Love has no opposite." I do not remember love, I do not know, but that sounds right.

Someone signed a letter today with the admission that they are lonely. I remember saying out loud "I feel so alone," only to discover he had fallen asleep. And I just cried.

Walking past Mark's old apartment I realize I miss the camaraderie of the first term of law school. I worry that we have moved past that. I worry that I just don't care anymore.

In the kitchen, I think that I don't trust people who are too idealistic. And I wonder.

I wish that someone was pulling me into their body as I faced the wall falling asleep. But I don't know if you can trust even this. It always feels like a new language.

I’m wondering how we trust and when we feel less alone.