I Want You

I walk a lot here.  I walk about two miles to the grocery for a few pieces of fruit and some bread and my housemates laugh when I come in and see the bags.  Gone for two hours for $10 worth of food.  I guess my time just isn’t worth much these days.  I have a lot of it and I have a lot to kill.

I’m so far in my head these days.  I write a lot, drink a lot of coffee.  My sleep suffers a little from that but when I wake up in the middle of the night it’s no inconvenience.  The quarter is nearly over and I have most of my work done.  Finish off a short story and a paper and I’ve got a while to do nothing, to prep for my reading and write more.  That’s what life is out here.  I thought I’d be okay with that, and largely I am, but I never gave it a thought that I’d be pulled so powerfully away.  At first she was supposed to be with me, a little magically.  We’d be living with Viking in the condo and laying out together or maybe trying to grill, or whatever, just living together.  Seeing what sort of a home we make.  When that didn’t come together it was that there was nothing, that I was supposed to forget, or to put her away.  Now we’re somewhere in the middle of that.  Thousands of miles away, across time zones and weather patterns.  But together, in our way, and happier for it.

I find myself writing as an escape, as much as anything.  It’s not suffering for it, but it is a distinct impetus.  I’m living in wait, trying not to count the days.  There are a lot of them.  I daydream of gray skies in a new city.  That should surprise you.  But I know that’s where I’ll find her.  Whether I come to her or she to me, it’ll be a new city, one I’ve never lived in, one that has rain.

I wrote a poem about a year ago that I put up for workshop a few weeks back, and I’ve been revising it and really considering its heart.  The whole premise is that I meet people, women, and fall in love with them, and what I remember and think of more than anything is the architecture of our relationship.  I think of the buildings we saw, the spaces we were in, what we sat on and what we drove through.  I’m not sure why that is.  It strikes me as something very masculine–not manly, but rather inherently male.  It may seem less romantic but when I think of her and what might be it’s a place that I may bring her, a home I can try to make again, streets that we can walk down.

I missed you powerfully last night.  It was a good night, fun, and even through that I wanted you.  I looked away often, up to the stars, sat back and listened for the things that they didn’t hear, things that even I didn’t hear; the sound of your voice, the passing of time.