this year

It's a February night, cold but not unbearable. I am far from city lights and the sky is breathtakingly clear. The boy beside me has a camera slung over his shoulder. Sounds are scarce this late in winter, but it's not cold enough to freeze the noisy stream bubbling nearby. I'm incredibly comfortable, with the cold, with the boy, with the quiet; I haven't enjoyed simple existence this much in a long time.

If I am lucky, and I think I might be, this feeling will persist through the change when the weather warms again. But for now, I don't even mind shoveling the snow that is forecast for this evening.

barfly

I wonder what we were thinking when we drank
tequila last year and shared sob stories, yours
subtle, ongoing, mine explosive and over.
We were escaping, but it wasn't a time for escaping
nor for contemplating. It was a time for confronting,
for action, dramatic change. Instead
we drank to confusion, sharing
every thought that came to mind, even
the ones that were supposed to be secret.
I wonder what we were thinking, side by side
on the sofa with dangerous ideas and possibilities.

I forgot my sweater, strewn over the back
of a black chair, incriminating.
A reminder of what even tequila
could not accomplish.

nightfight

It's 11 PM when my parents get into a fight because no one emptied the dishwasher today. I retreat to the basement, browse the must-glazed cardboard boxes full of dated schoolbooks, rifle through my brother's high school yearbook from 1988, idly run a hand over the punching bag I got for Christmas when I was fifteen and angry. It's quiet down here but for the hum of the water heater, busily warming the water rushing over the dirty dishes in the fateful dishwasher upstairs.

My feet get cold in the basement, and when I go back to the kitchen, Dad is getting himself a glass of water. We say nothing; I wonder if he is so angry about the dishes because he is stressed by other things in his life. I wonder if it's because he is still paying for his 23-year-old daughter's car insurance. I want him to tell me if he's tired and pissed. I know that's not what it's about, but I am thinking about so many things that it seems a real possibility.

I want anyone to tell me if they're pissed. There's no point bottling it up or bitching about it to someone else; it does no one any good. Tell me if you're upset. That's all you can do. Communicate.

I think about the various fights I've heard muffled through the walls over the years, and I think about the friends who've told me about their own parents' unspoken tensions, and I think about the unspoken tensions I've faced myself. I wonder about the ability to get so angry for such small reasons at people you know you love dearly.

All we can do is try to face each other and the truth and the love. The best we can do is just to try.

unfinished

It's one in the morning and I have to be up in seven hours. That's fine. But I'm tired, and I should have gone to bed when that first wall of fatigue hit me two hours ago. Now I will lie awake and think about the things I have to do when I get up in seven hours. I should have mailed those letters today. I would like to go through my favorite plays and spend a day reading them, paying attention to their words like I did a year and three months ago when all I had was that writing on a page. That's what I'd like to do instead of what I have to do.