You were an Endor celebration Leia

And I was Quentin Quire, broken

And you shouted your costume into my ear moments before my brain processed it

I was at a two person booth

And you sat down at it to talk with me

And your life was chaos but I was not listening

Juust nodding at the chaos the we all experience, and people, rightÉ

My phone, dead but re-enlivened like Lazarus

Plugged in, vibrates twice

And that is close enough to your buzz that I turn sharp

And maybe, small chance, very very small chance, infinticimal chance

Who knows?

I'm smoking and you're smoking

And I'm trying to grow hair

And you have dreads and you live in a space with a low ceiling

And I have a crush on Courtney but I wouldn't say that

We lie to the doctors and see if our health gets any better

And we're too nice or too youung to say anything to the accursed Judy

We are at a show

It doesn't matter which one, they bleed together like shades of orange

I lean against the wall, you gesture emphatically

We shout to be heard and strain to be listen and only succeed halfway

But even in misery I feel better having listened

At least I offered that support

We're aaall, in thiiiiis, to-ge-ther

I'm at the festival selling things

Maybe hanging aronud for a bit

We are at one of the sets, side by side

Someone asks if we're together, and we scoff

That's ridiculous!

Never, not in a million years

Associates forever

I'm happy to have someone to glom on to, momentarily

We have a relationship

I fuck it all up despite myself, not even knowing the how of it

I get angry and upset that I can't puzzle it together

This is simple math, I can make it work with the right combination

Of words and heart and not shutting up when I should not shut up

And a step back is a step back

Even if at first we don't think of it as that

Time will prove us wrong

Time is a dickweed

We smoke, hunched or reclined

Kid is in the house, watching a show

Talking shit, apprehensive

She's a good kid

Energetic, swinging from a crossbar

I don't know where it goes from here

But there's still snow on the gronud

There's a lot of time for other things

And pobody's nerfect and time's on our side

And I'm glad I trekked here

You left

I am still adjusting

I am going to be adjusting for a while, I think

And that's going to have to be okay

But it wasn't just you

This time there was something else I lost

And I guess I understand, or

I don't have to understand

Maybe in time I'll get some simulcrum of what I had

What gift was given to me that I never acknowledged as a gift until it was too late and that damage had been done and there was no going back or coming back or being back

I can't believe your mom unfollowed me on instagram

I'm sitting in my car in my driveway

Because I think that when I get out of my car and go into my house

There will be more day happening

And I am not mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually

(all four, I remembered all four!)

Prepared for more day to happen right now

The longer I sit in my car in my driveway

The more the chances increase

That my daughter comes to the window and notices me there

And texts and asks me why I am doing what I am doing

And saying "I am tired, I am trying to have a moment to not exist"

Is a difficult thing to say to anyone

least of all a legal dependant

Or that my landlord who lives below me

And is not home right now

Pulls into the driveway next to me

And wants to talk about something that is a thing

And I am no-thing-een

And any words to a human being right now will break the spell

What I would like to do most of all is nothing

But I'm sorta damned if I do, et ceterra

And I have to pee

Rats!