Having Hurt: Faith In Fireweeds

It was a thoughtful sickness, near-catastrophic but genuine, short-lived in the long-run, and even though it ended bad, I love what we started. Truth is, I'm twenty six and a half, and I should've outgrown this by now. And as I enter the second childhood of my fourth lifetime, I promise I'll fake being an adult a little bit better. Oh, I just need a vacation, you know, go intubate down the Guadalupe, let the cold soak in my bones and remind me of my skin.

"What is it that you want?"

"For this to be fair and equitable."

"Okay. Good. Now be more broad. More general. Tell me about your goals."

"Um....to...get divorced?"

"No, I mean...like, stop looking at the trees, and start looking at the forest."

"Like, the 'where do you see yourself in ten years' kind of deal?"

"Exactly."

"Um...oh. Okay. Well, not back here, for one."

"Well, I don't think ... I'm not really sure you are ... I mean ..."

"Am I not playing the game the right way?"

I don't mean to be difficult, except when I do, but my mouth never fails, except when it does, like when we're all one big tangled mess of legs and arms and wrists and hips and we're on the bed, and

oh god
I am alive
I just remembered

and we're not speaking, just breathing, and she's laughing and you're watching her and I'm watching you watching her, and are you aware that we are only living for one another? What else do we have? We become something else, like a real honest-to-god family. But something beyond that and less nuclear, too. Then I don't even want to say anything because warmth and syncopated heartbeats say more and words would only serve to insult. If this that we have is ever taken away from me, by you or by the universe, please just take me out back and put me down, like an old sheepdog. It will be a kindness.

Tell me when and I will stop smoking and I will get a new car and I will go see Tommy. I will, I will, I will, I do. I am ready.