The Rain Fell Soft

She looked me dead in the eyes.
“I’ve always loved you,” she said.
The rain fell soft on the ground.
“No,” I said, “you never knew me,
And I’ll always regret you.”
She looked away.

Chicken Soup

The truck rattles my house, the buckling sound as the bounce down the street crashes like thunder.  And I lie sick in bed thinking, "Chicken soup actually sounds pretty good right about now".

Day 1 Draft 1

Untitled

There was a time when I would lay with my head in your lap, and you would stroke my hair and sing to me.  It was so long ago I cannot remember a single word, but I remember the melody.  Soft and sweet you would sing me to sleep.  I was your beloved, your son.  You held me in your arms and I was safe.  I was so safe, so happy, so content.  No one ever felt as loved as me.  You were my mother, and you would never leave me.

You were there to teach me how to ride a bike, and when I fell, you stood me up and brushed me off.  When I said I didn’t want to keep going, you told me I needed to, and that you would be there to pick me up when I fell again.  Begrudgingly I got back on, again and again, until I stopped falling.  I don’t know that I ever thanked you, but I knew you were proud.  You were my mother, and you would never leave me.

You were there in middle school when I failed my English class.  You told me I couldn’t go to camp because I needed to go to summer school.  I was mad and I yelled at you and Dad, but you told me I had to be responsible for my actions.  I finished summer school and passed the class. But I never went back to camp and I would never admit that you were right.  You were my mother, and you would never leave me.

When I became ill you were the one who took me to the doctor.  When I couldn’t get out of bed, you stayed home and looked after me.  You and Dad sat in the hospital with me while they hooked me up to the iv, and while they ran their tests.  And when I was finally healthy again you celebrated with me.  But the whole time I never realized quite how much it had been hurting you too.  You were my mother, and you would never leave me. 

Then college came. I grew up and moved on.  My emails and calls became less frequent, as the years went by.  After my sophomore year I was spending my summers in Chicago in an apartment down the street from my campus.  My senior year I had a chance to study abroad in Barcelona.  I never came back.  But you were my mother, and you would never leave me.

The day came when the boxes with all my things arrived; cardboard boxes covered in our home address, postage, and red stamps in all caps that read fragile.  My teddy bear, my blanket, and my tattered old poster of Omar Vizquel. I left it all in boxes in my storage space downstairs. These were all part of my childhood and I had grown up.  You were a part of my childhood and I had grown up.  But you were my mother, and you would never leave me.

Then I met her, she was beautiful and brilliant.  Her name was Maria, and she was very much like you.  We spent all of our time together and decided to elope, I wrote you and Dad from the honeymoon, to let you know.  You wrote back how happy for us you were and how proud.  I knew that it must have hurt you, so I didn’t even save the letter.  But you were my mother, and you would never leave me.

When I heard that you were dying I was on the first flight home, but I didn’t make it in time.  When I got to the hospital you were covered with a sheet.  Everyone left the two of us alone, and I dropped to my knees and wept. I was there when they lowered you into the ground, and I asked dad if I could give the Eulogy.  He told me I could, he was never a man of many words. But it didn’t do you credit, no words ever could. You were my mother, and you never left me.

Attempted Transatlanticism

The waves crash over the cracked foot path, submerging the rusty bemoaned ladder under salty sea.  Behind the cackles raise up as the two philosopher kings shed their clothes and walk down the tiny pier.  To the west a lonely road gently makes its way through the emerald hills.  To the east, the town of summer cottages abandoned to the cold breeze of  September.  To the west the Atlantic, the states, home.  To the east a far off horizon, an ancient isle, the land of our fathers.  And in front of us a rough sea, and a blue sky, an endless view of blue and white.  We stand there, he and I, naked and crownless kings.  We stand there, on a the precipice of an abyss, that beckons with open arms.  We stand there for but a moment and then we leap. Enveloped by the sea, a baptism of sorts.  Brought back up through the waves.  Born again.  New men.

The Lake That Is Fed With A Burning River

I drag deep on my cigarette.  The slow smoldering flame burns closer to my lips beginning to burn the letters in black on white paper that read Turkish Royal.  The smoke filters out of my lungs, caught on the breeze like the wings of a bird.  To the West, dimly lit by the glow of a hundred candles in paper bags I see the creek pouring into the lake, the tall lonesome tree with roots sunk in sand, and the pier that the bags sit upon so precariously perched.  A memorial.  A reminder.  A swan song. A threnody.  To the East jutting out from the shore is a city, a string of lights, like a pearl necklace on this dingy bemoaned shore.  A handful of buildings reach to the sky, kept company by pillars of smoke from factory stackhouses. As I take another pull I look upwards, as a lonely cloud strolls across the sky, in a friendly game of tag with the stars that have come out early to play. I exhale slowly and flick my cigarette into the waves.  I quickly strip down, and within a few seconds I'm amongst the waves, swallowed up by the lake that is fed with a burning river.