He called to me to come outside. Waiting on my lawn with a canoe painted green and two pairs of oars. Get in, he said, and I did. But there’s no water here! I said. Oh, well I’ll take care of that. And out he climbed, pulling a long roll of cellophane from his pocket as though it was magicked to be bottomless. With a flourish and a cheeky grin, he placed the loose end at the bow of the boat and pushed the rest away, a carpet of cellophane unrolling before us. Well that’s not water either, but he clicked his tongue and told me to just trust. Take up the oars, he said, and he took up his. Ready? One, two, three, pull! And I expected to feel the wood connect with solid ground, but instead it sliced neatly through… well, something. A peek over the side and there it was, clear blue water where there was none before. I picked my oar up out of it and thin strips of cellophane clung to the top and dripped over the sides. See? he said. I told you to trust me. And there we went in our little green boat rowing down our cellophane river into infinity.
Garages seem to be the place where all the excess from life collects and settles. They start out sparse and neat. A few tools hanging in orderly rows on their hooks, a lawn mower, some cleaning supplies, some boxes of this and that that you’ll get around to unpacking one weekend or another. But those weekends slip by and the boxes sag with age. Eventually you never open them for fear of disturbing whatever ecosystem has taken up residence in them. Your interests change and more things pile up. An easel from when you thought you’d take up painting. Terracotta pots and soil and spades from when you replaced the painting with gardening (oh it would be so nice to grow your own vegetables, you thought). A bike and helmet from your fitness craze. Those you regret every time you see them. The cobwebs strung across the spokes and the dust caking the handle grips make you vow silently to start biking again next week. But then next week never seems to come.
More tools and supplies from when the car, the roof, the pipes, the porch railing, the shower tiles, the sink, the hinges all needed fixing or patching or some sort of mending with your amateur hands. The shelves go up so you don’t feel like such a packrat. Your parents ask your help when they move to a quaint little place by the lake. Sixty years young is the perfect time to take up boating. You come back with some childhood things you can’t bear to part with. A telescope, a dollhouse, some action figures still mint in the box. They might be worth some money, but you never sell. Your children’s things go on the shelves next to yours when they grow out of them. Eventually you have to strategically rearrange all the stuff that’s found a home in your garage so you don’t hit it with the car. Sometimes it occurs to you that a garage sale might be a good idea. But that’s a job for tomorrow. You put that on the shelf as well with all the other tomorrows and yesterdays that found their way to here.
Summer air is heavy with the buzzing of bees as they balance on delicate petal-tips, the heady scent of flowers’ centers as drops of sweet nectar beckon to any passing insect. Peaches are ripe and heavy on the trees, bowing the branches with their weight. Teenagers steal these from across property lines and find how their tender flesh succumbs so easily to a greedy mouth. And then they too are infected with the taste of the season. Children find it early when they pick off honeysuckle flowers from bushes strangled by chain-link fences and suck out the sugary dew. The essential fuel for days spent playing pirates in the punishing heat. It’s inescapable, the way the sun floods the earth with light and life every year. None of us can resist the lovers’ high, the buzz that comes from two things drawing close and making something beautiful. And people wonder why they’re gloomier in winter when the sun inevitably pulls away again and leaves every lovely thing it gave to die. No need to worry though. Not really. It always comes back and thaws the ice again. And the stellar romance continues, fickle as ever.
I want Sunday afternoons with you. We’ll sleep through the mornings and wake when the sun is high, but even then we’ll see no reason to get out of bed. Instead we’ll share kisses and recount our dreams, or maybe we’ll just lie there without saying anything at all. Silent, sunny moments can be even better than ones filled with words. I have bottles waiting on my windowsill to cork and cap those precious hours, keep the memory of your warm skin on mine preserved for when you are gone again and only the ghost of you lingers behind in your scent on my pillow and your dog-eared book by the bed.
It’s lonely in the
Stillness of a sleeping Earth
Two heartbeats make for
Sweeter dreams than only one
He wasn’t like I expected—some horned, red monster with forked tongue and tail. He was slick and clean, a tall, thin man in a smart, black suit. Blue pinstripes and silk pocket square, blonde hair slicked back with gel. Every bit the picture of a sharp businessman. You would never guess who he was until you got to his eyes, an unnaturally light, almost white, pale blue color that made you not want to look directly at them. He walked in with immaculate posture, three identical men following close behind, squat and olive-skinned with straight black hair. He sat at the head of the table, his associates taking three seats across from me. They folded their hands on the tabletop and I saw the only thing that differentiated one from the other: a dragon tattoo split into thirds on each of their left hands. Tail, body, and snarling head.
He cleared his throat and extended a hand for me to shake. “Mr. Spiller, a pleasure to finally sit down with you.” He flashed a bright white smile at me while I eyed his hand warily. I nodded in acknowledgment and he withdrew his hand with a little chuckle.
“Nothing personal,” I said in apology.
“Oh, I know. Nobody ever wants to shake hands with me. Though, I assure you, Mr. Spiller, that until an agreement is on the table, you have no reason to be cautious.” He grinned again, but I couldn’t find it in me to return the gesture. A moment passed and his smile was gone, all business again. He exchanged a look with the triplet closest to him and a leather briefcase with expensive-looking silver accents was placed on top of the table, even though I was sure I hadn’t seen any of them come in with it.
He pulled it towards him and sighed, running his finger along the seam. “Mr. Spiller,” he began. “Mr Spiller, I’d like to think of myself as a reasonable man. Logical, rational. Everybody wants something, and it’s been my experience that people simply use others to achieve their own ends.” He frowned for a moment, a little crease forming between his brows as he stared at the briefcase before focusing his unsettling, blank gaze on me. “So I think you understand, then, that this situation… piques my interest,” he said.
He wasn’t like I expected—some horned, red monster with forked tongue and tail. He was slick and clean, a tall, thin man in a smart, black suit. Blue pinstripes and silk pocket square, blonde hair slicked back with gel. Every bit the picture of a sharp businessman. You would never guess who he was until you got to his eyes, an unnaturally light, almost white, pale blue color that made you not want to look directly at them. He walked in with immaculate posture, three identical men following close behind, squat and olive-skinned with straight black hair. He sat at the head of the table, his associates taking three seats across from me. They folded their hands on the tabletop and I saw the only thing that differentiated one from the other: a dragon tattoo split into thirds on each of their left hands. Tail, body, and snarling head.
He cleared his throat and extended a hand for me to shake. “Mr. Spiller, a pleasure to finally sit down with you.” He flashed a bright white smile at me while I eyed his hand warily. I nodded in acknowledgment and he withdrew his hand with a little chuckle.
“Nothing personal,” I said in apology.
“Oh, I know. Nobody ever wants to shake hands with me. Though, I assure you, Mr. Spiller, that until an agreement is on the table, you have no reason to be cautious.” He grinned again, but I couldn’t find it in me to return the gesture. A moment passed and his smile was gone, all business again. He exchanged a look with the triplet closest to him and a leather briefcase with expensive-looking silver accents was placed on top of the table, even though I was sure I hadn’t seen any of them come in with it.
He pulled it towards him and sighed, running his finger along the seam. “Mr. Spiller,” he began. “Mr Spiller, I’d like to think of myself as a reasonable man. Logical, rational. Everybody wants something, and it’s been my experience that people simply use others to achieve their own ends.” He frowned for a moment, a little crease forming between his brows as he stared at the briefcase before focusing his unsettling, blank gaze on me. “So I think you understand, then, that this situation… piques my interest,” he said.
The important moments always seem to slip so stealthily by us. We never recognize them for what they are at the time. We see them without thinking to keep them, to press and preserve them as That Moment. It amazes me how many things I’ve missed, how many beginnings and endings and turning points I have lived through without truly experiencing the weight they carried. The important things never announce themselves with posturing or fanfare. They enter quietly, sometimes unnoticed, and quickly become everything that ever mattered. Later we reach back for them, but they evade our grasping fingertips. And we are never able to answer how or why or when or where they came to be, but we know that they did exist. We know that there was that first moment when everything we knew suddenly changed.
The important moments always seem to slip so stealthily by us. We never recognize them for what they are at the time. We see them without thinking to keep them, to press and preserve them as That Moment. It amazes me how many things I’ve missed, how many beginnings and endings and turning points I have lived through without truly experiencing the weight they carried. The important things never announce themselves with posturing or fanfare. They enter quietly, sometimes unnoticed, and quickly become everything that ever mattered. Later we reach back for them, but they evade our grasping fingertips. And we are never able to answer how or why or when or where they came to be, but we know that they did exist. We know that there was that first moment when everything we knew suddenly changed.
I think there used to be shadows in our hearts, weight we carried in the curves and angles of our shoulders. I think there used to be bruises and scars on the tender, fragile parts of our souls. I think there used to be, but for the life of me, I can’t feel them anymore. They must have gotten lost in the tight spaces between our two skins. Maybe they slipped away while we were lost in kisses; maybe we didn’t even feel them go. I explore those places where they used to be, but now I only find precious pieces of light, warmth from the memories of an arm hooked around my waist. Everything changed, and I can’t say I miss how it used to be.
I got addicted to that taste, sugary sweet on my tongue. The flavor that comes with tracing the words “I love you” over and over with your lips. Sometimes I said it just to say it, just because it had been too long since I knew the taste. Just a quick whisper and it was back again. I love you. I love you. I love you. Honey. I needed that hit. I said the words constantly until my lips were chapped, my tongue felt fuzzy with them. And each bit of sweetness melded into the other until I barely noticed it. So I had to say them more. And I said them until the sweet turned to bitter and I choked on it in the back of my throat. I still heard myself mumbling those desperate I love you’s, wanting it to feel like the first time when I savored it. And then I couldn’t taste anything at all.
I don’t know
The tingle of lip to lip
And skin to skin
Of locking gaze
Eye to eye
And having the moment
Shoot through you
Right to your toes
I don’t know
How the space between
Two people
Screams silently
To be closed
And I don’t know
How two
Can become one
In heat to heat
And breath to breath
But I do know
How a soul
Calls to another
Across infinite expanses
To meet in the middle
Heart to heart
