For Bee

This is not as long or as lovely as you deserve, but it is what I wrote for you.

 

Sometimes, when the nights here in Southern California remind me, harshly, that this is a goddamn desert despite all appearances, I think of you. I think of you at three am when I swing idly in an abandoned courtyard where I watch the probably-short lived lives of three stray kittens who kiss and cuddle and claw each other with adoration.

                When the boy who used to keep me up until three am by kissing and cuddling and clawing with adoration tells me that he’s not doing this anymore, I think of you.

                On nights like tonight, writing in a coffeehouse when no one I know is still feeling free, I think of you. I think of the bizarre circumstances that caused your words to fall into my lap and a part of my heart to fall into your throat and hands (if only to be that much closer to your voice, which I have read but never heard). I think about where we could be if one or the other had ever hopped onto a train and stumbled into the other’s home town city. I think of who I could be had I managed to stumble into the coffeehouse Saturday afternoon serendipity of your life and managed to pull both of us into a revolution.  Or  I try, at least, when I am not alone but lonely and you are many miles away.

On nights like tonight, the idea of escape is as far as my mind can take me; I cannot conceive what life outside the ‘exit’ signs must look like. I think it comes in all the colors of sunlight-pale gold at dawn, whiter-than-white off see and snow, pink just before dusk on the nights I can’t sleep.  I think it must smell like gasoline at midnight in June and taste like the first rain-promising breeze of the year.  I think it must come with clean earth things, with pomegranates and apples and oranges and pears, things we can eat without depositing poison in our veins. We would be, in the words of Rumi, wanderers, wonderers, worshippers, lovers of leaving. We would learn the curves of roads the way Casanova learned the curves of women; we would learn the curves of women the way devotees learn the ancient chants to honor God.  I think we would sing. We would finish each other’s sentences and sit in silence. We would be girl-boy-what-the-f***s curled up in the back of buses, handing out flowers and writing poems in sharpie and lip liner on the palms of people’s hands. We would hold a lot of people’s hands.  We would hug and kiss away tears and get on the next train out of town, a little bit of love left in our wake, a little bit of whimsy in the lives of those left, and some laughter in our eyes.

Reviews

[xx]

I'm not sure if you're here anymore, as this was written in 2008 and I can't seem to find any more recent works from you.

And I'm really sorry, but there are just no words that I can say at the moment that can properly express how I feel about this piece. It moved me - this way and that and here and everywhere - and I swear to you now that I have not come across writing on WC that I identify with more than I identify with what you have written here. I'm speechless.

Why doesn't this have more reviews? I don't even understand.

Though I don't usually discuss my personal life with anyone at all, I just want to say this: I was hooked by the time I finished reading the first paragraph. I'm ashamed to say it, but there have been nights when I simply cannot go to sleep at three am in the morning because my thoughts keep wandering where they really shouldn't, lest I start trying to tear myself apart.

Beautiful imagery, a truly wonderful composition. I've added this to my favorites, and I literally only have two pieces of writing in there. I know this was a ridiculously useless review that wasn't constructive at all, but I really hope you haven't left WC for good...And I hope to see more writing from you, if you are still here/decide to return!

-Mina

[Hedra Helix]

Wow, I totally relate to the lonely beautiful wistfulness of that, southern cali summers hot and still.
lost boys in towns far away.

man, worst review for how much I like this.

seriously it captured it for me, felt it knew it saw it remembered it as I read. Thank you for haring this.