Old Man, I miss you.

Bald head, erratic pace, he was on a mission, he caught my eye he reminded me of something (maybe someone). He was about 55 and he was carrying a bag of oranges and a magazine as he walked out of the library and straight through the bushes lining the trail. Did he notice those bushes, me staring directly at him? He stood still, in front of a bronze statue, the sort of statue you walk past maybe give it a little thought, lovely, sweet, I miss my little girl, I miss my mother, I can’t wait for thanksgiving, who the fuck cares? A mother hold her little girl in her lap, and reading a book, big smiles and pigtails, he put a magazine on the little girl’s bronze book, and opened it up. He didn’t smile; he just looked down on them, sitting on the bench. The real bench next to theirs was covered in snow, he kicked all the snow off, an old man kicking snow off a bench, and surely he wanted to sit there. He kicked the snow off, gave an indignant look to the mother and daughter, and walked straight through the bushes into the library, bag of oranges and all.
One thing I gathered from this is he’s a little strange, and very angry. I wanted to run into that little library and find him reading in the religion section, don’t worry your wife’s just going through a stage, your daughter really loves you, despite the fact she hasn’t hugged you in a decade, she thinks about you all day and every time something impressive happens she wants to call you. You’re the only one to ever break any of her bones. You’ve hurt her more than you could ever know; you were her hero, and how could someone that disdains violence and lives life as a sullen stoic act so violently toward his little love? She’ll live her life wondering about your anger toward her; maybe someday she’ll ask you why, what was going through your head? She doesn’t even think that it’s really wrong, is it wrong? How could he get away with it? Her mother never said a thing. It wasn’t wrong, I deserved it. Do all parents act like this? She always thought they did.
I ran to the bench right when the library door shut, my professor almost running me over with his bike. He has a daughter. It’s an L.L. Bean catalogue. And next to the little girl’s bronze foot is a car key. I picked both up and stuck them in my pocket.

Part of my new Story

Little pieces of past plummet through my perennial despondency, I catch the pieces in jars to light my dark rooms. I sit staring out into the cloudy mountains plump with snow, chomping away at the little flakes and filling their folds, until they are smooth. The yellow light fools the night; a friendly invitation, sleep inside the warm glow, melt the snow. Nothing, nothing, nothing, the sound of nothing, the sound of the word softly falling inside, snowflakes harboring secrets underneath, and I watch while the light of my jars dims and I’m left alone listening to the tumbling sky and whispering earth.


We left her oblivious and alone. It felt right to us. Of course we wanted to get away, feel that new light of freedom. We dropped everything and left her to her moaning and crying. I knew I would never forget her, who could? She was always there, a warning, omniscient and loving. The train chugged, and chugged, relentlessly and though we had no part in its monotonous beating, we were running and pulling and racing as fast as we could, to avoid the thoughts of leaving. I woke up to her scent and I put my clothes on to her breezes. She held me and sung me to sleep, always waiting for the second my eyelids closed to fill my dreams with unspeakable horrors. The bad dreams I could feel, and never remember. Hearts pumped her through veins, little ticks and tocks and clicks, and heart aches reverberated now and then, with her always pushing inside. We were young enough to have these memories blown up like balloons and helium, floating like artificial clouds, all colors, dreaming to fly away.

The Moon

I’m concerned for the well being of my untouched homework and that almost empty bag of cookies; my entire diet, as of late. Cookies, and a few cups of coffee, I really don’t know what I’m going to do when those cookies run out. I suppose I’ll contact a certain mother who sent them to me in the first place and ask for a follow up batch… and when she asks where the other ones went off to so quickly after they were sent, I shall reply, “I was hungry.” Though she probably won’t understand they’re all I eat, she may conclude from my simple words, that I am in an extreme state of poverty. The comfort of knowing she baked them herself, and knowing her, out of the lovely organic stuff. She’ll sing some songs, full of motherly bliss, just being around her I feel in a constant hug. Love is no longer that intolerable variable, trust isn’t a question, she doesn’t even have to say the slightest word and I know, I know, she’s there. She always ties on her old white apron, washed a millions times, and lathers her hands and lower arms, rinsing them in the delicate warm water, under the sun light seemingly always to belong in that little area of the kitchen.
I’ve always strictly adhered to her style of decorating, the way she cracks eggs, and makes coffee, draws and paints, her compassion. She was the first one to put makeup on me, the first one to curl my hair and tell me how smart and how beautiful I am. She taught me how to read. No matter how much I don’t, can’t believe her, she’s always right. In the late hours of night, when I have no one to kiss me and say goodnight, I call her, and she’s there. “Can you see the moon, Eileen?”
“No mother it’s on the other side of the building.”
“Well, I’m looking at it, and if you could see it, we would be looking at the same moon.” She laughs, whimsical and ethereal, I wonder if she really misses me, the way I miss her. We fight a lot, and I fuck up, so much. Some days I miss her so much, I can’t even call her, to bare the sound of her voice, her happiness and my sadness.
“I miss you, my love…. Just always know, I’m with you, at your side.” These 1000 miles are so illusory; they may as well be that separation of Buddhism and Christianity.
I go outside on these cold fall nights. Dark yellow and red leaves the ever present gasp and exhale of the trees, falling down. Sometimes the pack of 10 raccoons will chase me up the path. The little grey kitty, gallops to meet me as I walk the wooden stairs, the moon is there illuminating. She’ll understand when I tell her I’m a miserable wreck and want to run away.