… an itch my eye, twitched like a memory of forgotten bars. one of those cities, one of those nights where everyone’s ‘darling’ and everyone’s ‘sweetheart’. there’s this drink to hold my hand, one glass of anything, anything cheap and i’m here just because everyone else has come here just to be seen. oh, i don’t know these buildings, i think i am lost.
in the perfumed armpit of time, develop a deadline… so i stand still boring and bored, fetching my eye against the wall. at the end, at the close, would you be good enough to take me home?
there was an outrageously expensive cream chair against a red window sill and a blue wall in brooklyn.
a cobbled street in front of a red-lit sign that caught the rain in passing.
that small cottage up that one canyon.
the apartment with the dark wood floors and the open kitchen and the too-big-for-it kitchen table bathed in the too-bright-for-you light.
and there were all those nights. and all those early mornings. and somewhere in between it, there were all those times spent waiting in hotel rooms, that little green mod piece, countless bottles of wine, all those restaurants stretched out over both coasts, the continual pull of the back and forth, and that one room where the drapes were never drawn and the light came early in that other canyon.
there was a lot of anxiety, a very particular amount of self-deprecation, and eventually the knowledge that it wasn’t always going to be easy but it really didn’t have to be so fucking hard.
in looking back-past every door, with every drive, down all those alleys, and with every darkened corner in every half-lit bar that’s filled with its own sordid group of frequenters- was you.
you see, that’s exactly what happens when, every once in a while, you stop and survey the little parts to your story. you move beyond your memory of the events, moving aside all those other people who mattered if only for the specific purpose of teaching you all those things you’re forced to learn before you’re finally ready. and you begin to see that the really good filling was there the entire time.
you were right there the entire time. yes, you were behind some stuff and yes, you were doing your thing.
but here you are.
i always had a problem getting offended.
i never cared enough and by the time i saw how the affectation played out, i was always too deep in.
sometimes, i miss the shit out of… that lost innocence.
may my children always be the rebel i was incapable of sustaining.
fuck that.
j
….her rich attire kept rustling to her knees…
There was no rehab for people like them.
There were only different cities filled with charming cafes, open tables with freshly popped champagne bottles, and countless people at whom they would smile.
Endless nights from the fishbowl,
Jess
