She had blue pelican feathers and the air around her tasted like a rainy day in Korea. I would whisper things about awkward dreams in which she was breathless, a girl with letters on the tip of her tongue and the idea that humans are corrupt, a sad try at divinity.
She agreed with my ideas that it was okay to cry and smell rooms that nobody lived in. My eyes were a watery mess, but I felt young. She had k rations in the bed of her pickup truck, enough to last us several days on this sad rock. I kept a one-quart canteen full of your favorite brandy, the kind that didn't get you too tipsy. It was sweet on the tongue and almost palatable.
I said that I felt infinite, a cell that goes through mitosis again and again and again. I was a trapdoor spider, catching my prey and biting their necks and injecting nicotine infused venom into their blood vessels.
He told me to breathe in the harmful sulfur first. It was courteous and helped save the lungs of a precious someone. Told me too much about Mary Tyler Moore but kept repeating that she did charity work for juvenile diabetes.
Hair was plastered against your forehead because I colored you with the scarlet fever. Your throat was numb and not even the sound of your favorite music could fix that. We wanted to go wild and stop spending our nights in a basement smoking something that was surely full of some kind of acid.
My soles were made out of crude rubber imported from South America. I took so many walks that they were worn down, my skin rubbing against asphalt, collecting tiny tektites and distributing them to knowledge hungry scientists.
I didn't care about space or why the earth turns. I didn't care about gravity or why we don't fly upwards into black holes that swallow light. They're the original pessimists.
All I cared about is where you go with him on Friday. If he treats you right and if he pays for your dinners at some Italian restaurant that couldn't be bothered with cooking American cuisine.
I'm all alone now, buying myself shampoo and all other kinds of toiletries. Whenever I feel a land breeze I think of you, the girl lost among text books, melted chocolates, and bad parties.
Where am I? I'm lost in philosophical bathroom stalls, writing about how we give the love we think we deserve, writing lyrics even Kurt Cobain would be proud of. I've contracted the black measles, but don't worry because I have hope for the future. I can see you helping people, giving them that 60 watt smile and teaching little kids that game with the parachute.
You don't remember that, do you? We'd grasp the edges with tiny 7 and 8 year old hands throwing up a multicolored cloth up in the air. We giggled in unison, crawling underneath in as it came down on top of us. We were lost in a sea of letter bombs and the calls from a widowbird.
I'm sorry for not smiling enough.