Far too finely wrought to be good.
Leaving a loved place for what is probably the last time. A place that already exists primarily in memory. Could there be any more fraught and melancholy words than next year?
Looking for the few right words that will fix everything.
Maybe next time.
For years I saw him once a day with his after-work drink and loosened tie, desultorily watering the lawn with his free hand. After a few minutes she’d join him, in her Jackie Kennedy white pants, smoking a cigarette and regarding him through narrowed eyes. When he’d finished his drink he’d throw the ice in the bushes before they went back inside. I never figured out if they hated each other or were deeply in love.
I was feeling pretty shit. Like I had cancer and didn’t know it, or was about to lose my mind. Ever feel that way? Like you have cancer, and don’t know it, or are about to lose your mind? And I couldn’t get that song out of my head.
In order to preserve energy, his last weeks were marked by a strict economy of means—pointing to an object, a nod yes or no. His final blog entry, posted at 4 am, read “blog entry.”
A season of grey drizzle, jet fuel, burnt coffee, lavatory disinfectant. Looking back, it all seems rather exotic. I miss it. I’m so tired. So sad. So angry. If we met now, I wonder if you’d know me.
If I died right now it would be happily, with your vegetables prepped on the kitchen counter, your carrots and onions on the stove, and the sounds of yard work drifting in the window.
End Times, or Beginning?
Glimpsed in a reflection, he saw himself as he must look to the world: bewildered, as if expecting a final blow to the head.
You lie awake for hours unable to remember if the word is epitaph or epitath. Falling into blackness through a two-letter hole.
Going through her things, they came upon a note.
It said: I’d kill for a cigarette, or half an hour of sleep.
