Writing Now

Today was kinder than the day before. There was more cloud than sun, but the sky was not without light. The wind not without heat. The kind that hovers over your skin and grazes the crook of your nose and lights up the ends of your fingertips. There is a song playing inside your head. Over and over. You sing along with a smile in your eyes, ready to gift to a stranger. You imagine dancing like you don’t care who sees. But you don’t do it. Maybe tomorrow. Tomorrow will be even better than the day before. You look…

When asymptotes fall in love, how tragic. Two lines coming closer and closer and never meeting. He leaps out of the graph and finds the angle that computes you. Adds his devotion, undivided attention. Affection is irrational, the limit does not exist. But only for today. Tomorrow it’s a new page. You add your fears, his time is halved. Multiply love by the power of all the things you should have done. Two lines collide then come apart, asymptotes to the end. Never to meet again. *** The problem with love is that the equation is never balanced.    …

There is a light somewhere that flickers before it bursts into flame. Wildfire. It consumes and it hurts worse than darkness. You walk half a mile seeking escape, but the voices follow. Nagging. Relentless. You lay down and breathe in and out. In and out. ‘Listen to the sound of your breathing,’ she says. ‘Throw everything else away. Focus on mindfulness.’ ‘Isn’t that redundant?’ you think. But that’s a thought about words again, isn’t it? And you need to throw that away. At least right now, in this slow, short hour. In this quiet room full of strangers each carrying…

“Your shower isn’t working.” “It is! Let me–” “No! I mean I can figure this out.” “Are you sure?” The sound of knuckles light against the door. “You pull and twist to the left for warm water–” “Got it. I’m fine!” If he had said anything else you didn’t hear it, not with the rush of water from the shower. His shower. His bathroom. His house and last night his bed. Why? You asked yourself again, flattening your forehead against the wall as warm water fell and wrapped around you like an overwhelming hug. “Why?” This time out loud and…

You love him. You love him. “I know. I heard you the first bajillion times,” your best friend scoffed beside you. You were saying it out loud, apparently. It was dark and you didn’t turn to see his face, but you knew his eye roll followed. He’d done it a bajillion times before too. “Sorry,” you said, grinning, though you weren’t really. “I mean look at him.” That was what you were here for, precisely. In this dark, smoky bar on a school night, two hours of traffic away from where you and your friend both lived. Standing at the…