'late summer 2013'

the white light. the separation of space. the canyons of down comforter and exposed skin. the tumbling laughter, the hissing water, the hours of wasted time. he was tracing shapes, spans of her flesh, drinking alone in the morning. the teeth of expectation, side step of obligation, the bar with all her friends. their quiet doubt, her vocal disappointment, the stretch and gasp of her fulfillment. her strange blue bathroom tiles, him reading marquez, her dreaming of his voice filling her house. tequila shots, weekend plots, and the maze of his silent heart- the walls translucent and carved with words. one hundred and thirty seven miles, those iron wrought chairs on the front lawn, his parade of old lovers, and the wounds he didnt watch himself make. mumford and sons in her speakers, questions she wouldnt ask him, the look on his face as she told of former fists. the song of trembling pianos, the orange streetlight blur, waking to a room strewn with the casualties of their clothes. whispers in the sand, gleam on the tiles, scent of bourbon on the winds of the tide. clothes drying on railing, beach stranded parasols, her wet hair hanging down her bare back. he is assailed by the pillows, she is putting on earrings someone else gave her, she is standing naked on the oceanview porch. she is thinking of cities, tracing out teeth marks, he knows it is their last sunset. red residue light, the howl of pianos, the raging of the brass, the symphony kungfu necktie. their procession of rocks glasses, him working the pool table, her drinking him through the bars haze. he is memorizing her constellations, of laughs and nervous ticks, of freckles and unsaid confessions. she is writing their name on hidden kitchen paper napkins, hes outside in the dusk. theres a kiss and a hand at the back, a poem written on the mirror, theres the lingering scent of his absence. he has her stranded on battered sheets, he has her laughing in the morning lull, he has her in his arms.
he has her in his arms.
he has her.  in his arms.

 he loved her
too late did he realize,
too late did she recall her heart.

Refrain

She props herself up on one elbow hair falls mischievous lengths suddenly illuminated its colour wheat before gleaning the afternoon light he smiles she laughs poured out in the defiantly green december grass she is all bare feet and a navy blue patterned dress even as the wind like an escaped giggle tumbles out and over and shaking the grass he can hear material pull over the her pale limbs she’s staring at him and he thinks for a moment she might keep the seasons at bay by ferocity of her smile and her dancing eyes reflecting blues and greens clouds only move when they are looking at them and he rambles  words a sieve then her voice ringing out all hammered yellow gold here he cannot remember if he laid down or if he fell she asks him if all the world is only what he can see he cannot answer or figure out what she is doing here her head now on his chest listening hidden heartbeats not so far off there is the noise the indifferent churning highway that he was sure that would never come to grips with the truth that there was no such thing as time he feels suddenly shorn the light like a prayer and while he knows in that moment that he will never understand her or how in her aura everything even him seems to pulse with tidal waves of resistance or even why she was laying there beside him in this space between seasons he thinks perhaps the only great mystery might be why there was no mystery to it at all.

Leviathan

-I’m not long for this world- she pronounced from her mismatched ensemble of pillows.  Her eyes, wide and surrounded by the residue of last night’s mascara, stared at him around a sharp nose, lying casually on vulgar silk purple pillow.
He was sitting at the window, exhaling, a push of the breath, the smoke from his cigarette through the barely opened window. Bleeding back in through the gap was the sound of water pushed between tire and pavement and the casual assault of rain but she knew he had heard him.
She considered repeating herself and opted instead to roll over on to her back and sigh dramatically. He had seen this too she knew, she had continued to watch him as she shifted positions.
He drove the butt of his cigarette into the ash tray, the act seemed brutish to her, she decided it was due to the disparity between his hands, large and strong and the vanquished cigarette.
He had been so tan once, but spring had been long coming and when it did it was not cool and bright as it had been back home. Here the spring was cold and wet, not too terribly different than the fall. She didn’t understand how he could not be cold, his chest bare, propping himself up against the window.
He turned to face her, his eyes dark and blue. Flat. Took her in, and turned back to the window.
-are you trying to imply you’re dying?- his voice and a snap, the window old and wooden being pulled down and into place.
-no.- she said – I just feel liking I’m not going to make it. Like I am going to be gone soon.-
- so you’re implying that you’re dying.-  he responded, tone of voice to match the eyes that had come back around to her. He stood there in the bedroom, her grandmother’s carpet propped up under his toes, and his torso, pale and lean rising just a little with each of his slow breaths.
-yes.- she admitted- but you don’t understand.-
-you’re not dying.- and shook his head.
-how do you know?- she was being childish now, she knew it, but she did that sometimes, she felt because it was role relegated to her. She rolled, perched herself up on her elbows, and peered at him her eyes framed by her disheveled close cropped hair.
-I’ve seen someone dying- he said  - and you’re not dying.-  he looked across the open apartment into the kitchen at something she couldn’t see. She knew he was remembering, she could see it.
-What was that like?- she inquired, he heard the tone of her voice chance, gone was the pitch of the melodrama and he could tell she was concerned
-It was a long time ago.- he started, paused, knowing she would persist, continued- there wasn’t much left of her at the end. She wasn’t a terribly big thing to begin with, but at the end there didn’t seem to be much of her underneath the hospital sheets.  You know I don’t remember much about it, except her eyes and the smile that she always had. And then that broke, and I can remember exactly how I felt when it did. I remember that feeling more than I remember her- he quit talking, he was flexing his hands.
-How did she die?- she asked, though she didn’t know why.
-The same way everyone dies. - he said- Scared.-

The wind

His brother was standing off by the water, at the lake, his back to the sun. He stared at him for a while from the porch, not knowing if he should join, or interrupt. It occurred to him that he had not taken much time to see him, to look at him. The wind pushed in off the water, shook the heavy leaves that hung like fragile ornaments from the trees. His casually blonde hair it too gently messed. He was looking out at something over the water.
                He tried to guess at whatever he was so intent upon, but could see nothing except the shimmer of the retreating sun, and the onset dark of the southern night. He walked through the screen porch, into the choir of the shaking leaves the churning crickets and the door closed quickly behind him in a jarring crash. His brother turned and his eyes were flat and dark.  By the time he reached him his brother had turned back to the water.
                They stood there like that for some time, shoulder by shoulder looking out at the water that so far as he could tell, had no reason to be looked at.
                ‘She left.’ His brother said. He had known, or suspected, no known in that way you can know something about someone just by looking at them. He grunted.
                ‘I’m sorry.’ He said some time later, which seemed not enough to him, but he could not really decide on what else he could say.  His brother shrugged. He tried again to see what on the water so held his brother’s attention. There was nothing there by familiar afternoon light so far as he could tell.
                ‘Do you remember when we were kids? There was this tree that had been split by lightning.’ His brother began unprompted.
                ‘Yeah’
                ‘That tree must have been there for years, it was grey and dead where it split, and it had fallen into three parts. You guys used to climb and build. Every hour for every day in those summers. They seemed to last so much longer.’ He grunted again in agreement. ‘One of the sides that fell, was really overgrown, too much to build on. And while you two were building and talking. I would climb through the branches to the very end of that part of the tree.  You guys couldn’t do it, you were too big. But I would climb out on to this same long branch. Couldn’t have been more than twenty feet off the ground but man it seemed like I was so high. The sun would go down, just like it is now, and the wind would pick up. And that branch would sway, I would be on it, and I would sway too, and though it always felt like the branch would break, I knew it wouldn’t. I didn’t ever worry I would fall, I would just sway up there.’
                ‘I never knew you did that.’
                His brother shrugged again. ‘I liked the way it felt.’
                He turned to look at his brother. ‘What are you looking at out there?’
                His brother, his voice carrying his confusion about the question, responded ‘Nothing.’ And after doing so, put his hand on his shoulder, held for a moment and then walked off to the porch that was now empty. He watched him go.
                He turned back to the water, to look at it; it was a field of endless ripples, set upon by his brother’s wind. He thought of all the minuscule organism being pushed and throw around, moved by forces beyond their comprehension. How did they endure it? Did they do it gracefully or ignorantly? And he wondered if in the end if it mattered at all.

Memory

Waking broken light. Barren the space, black sheets. Trembling vertical blinds. A cosmos illuminated, the silent swirling translucent dust, every where, but only visible there in those thrusting bars of white light.  Moving over and through a sound, sounds on sounds, a wobbling voice, fluttering paper, and underneath it all a monotone, mechanical scratching.
The dream slipped away from him, tide receding his waking mind unveiled by its departure. His breath was a deep one, akin in sound to the first breath upon breaking the water.
She liked to sleep, the calm. And she awoke each morning reborn. She watched him awaken, the stuttering opening of his eyes. In that moment he did not look reborn she thought, he looked marooned. She put her hand, the flat of her palm to his chest. She did not know why she still did it, reaching out to feel it. It was always absent- when he woke, when he slept, after the collapse of their bodies that occurred in between. Her strange habit and his nonparticipating role in it, her hand searching for the beat of his heart.
'How did you sleep?' she closed her eyes to await the roll of his rumbling voice over her.
'I dreamt' She knew, only when dreaming was he still in his sleep.
Her voice, he thought,  was a cat stretching as she asked 'Of what?' He would have lied, natural inclined to avoid combustive conversation, and believing that truth had no business in a morning bed. But he was denied the chance. Before he could he heard her voice again, 'Of whom?'
She did not know why she had extended her inquiry, the second question simply tumbled out of her mouth. Still he could have lied, but he mistook the inertia of her words for intuition.
He tried to remember who it was it he had been dreaming about. He knew her name, it stood steadfast, erect in his mind like a memorial column, a history, their history, storied, wrapping around the syllables of her name. But he could not see her when he thought of her. He had been able to in his dream, but the image, her likeness, had been pull away with the movement of the dreaming waters, the exposing of being awoken.
'A ghost', he responded.
She knew all of his ghosts, reluctant or willing, were women. She was not surprised, simply curious, and so asked who she was. He answered. She thought there was something quite odd in the way he said her name, the way it came out of his mouth, forced, the sounds seemed distant to the him. He said her name like one says the name of ancient places one knows of but has never seen, like places that exist now only in the stasis of history passed.
'Why is she a ghost?'
He ran a heavy hand over his face, his callouses catching on the his skin. She knew this look, this movement of the hand, the veil behind which his eyes would fall, and the churning that would go on in his mind as he sought the words he wanted.
Eventually, 'I can't see her. When I think of her there's no picture, no image to go with the name. I know I knew her, that I had known her well. But I can't remember her.' Those words caught in the minute illuminated debris - as it did, in the air as if it were being kept afloat by the condemning viscous whirl of the ceiling fan. She didn't understand, or she understood but couldn't believe. She could still remember them all, intimate companions. She could still remember the most casual of companions, a friend from a summer camp when she was a child, the look on her first grade teacher's face when she was surprised. She could not imagine not being able to remember someone.
He felt her look at him, peer, squint as if to help the flawed organ focus. He knew she was bothered, he could feel it come off her bare skin, a silent buzz, not bothered simply stirred from her complacent morning centeredness.
'You would know her if you saw her right?' she asked.
'Of course,' he responded and continued through the first sounds of the question blossoming within her,' but knowing isn't remembering'
In that moment she thought she felt it, his heart but it could have been the residue of some far off thunder.
'I think' he began but she cut him off 'Stop, I don't...' trailed off and he did. She rolled over so she could not see the window, closed her eyes, and forced her self to remember.

An Unexpected Puzzle

She was not sure how this had begun.
Nor, was she sure how long it would go on. She had at first thought they would abandon it, the puzzle, forced by the august sun to retreat to a shadier location. But the first drink had come, then the second, and to the quiet percussion of the filling and draining of their glasses the sun had stumbled its way through the sky.
The table they sat across grew and shrank, ignoring laws of reason and physics, it’s size never changing but the space between her and him always was. He was far away now, farther than her arm could reach despite the caress of his calloused palms.  Frustrated she abandoned his hand and began to fish through the pieces, a task that was pointless.
He wasn’t disengaged. The slightest sound from her commanded his full attention. And she liked that, the way he would turn and focus on her, bringing to bear all of himself to consider whatever casual remark she made. She would ask him a question  and she could almost feel him stop to consider it, he would remain quiet, turn himself to the pile of pieces, select one out, fit it or toss it aside before trying another until without much warning at all his voice would break through the sound of the intercoastal waterline, with an answer.
But in between picking and placing of pieces and those comfortable exchange of words and his gaze would wander and she could feel him sliding away from her. Drifting off to the horizon where begrudgingly the sun retired. It didn’t feel disingenuous his tidal disposition at the table and at their puzzle.
Shake of the wrist, the jingle of stubborn ice cubes, a sigh, and he was up, long strides to the porch where the liquor was. She watched him, his confident walk and  his seemingly casual indifference to the gust of wind or troupe of ducks that had taken afternoon refuge near the path to and from the house.  He wasn’t long gone and upon his return he fixed her with a smile and it made her nervous for how easily contented that simple gesture made her.
He leaned into the pile, fingering through the pieces, seeming to evaluate them by some method that evaded her. He picked one, didn’t even try to place it before tossing it back into the pile. Shifted through them again, picked another, eyed a position in the upper right corner and placed it as if it was meant for that place.
But it wasn’t. She didn’t know how long they had sat there, talking and drinking, enjoying the brief whispers of cool airs that would pop up and over the sea wall, placing pieces- or trying to place- into a puzzle. But it wasn’t a puzzle, when she had opened the box she had found that there were at least four different puzzles within, none of them, she suspected, complete. At the realization, assuming he had notice for it was so obvious, she had thought first to put the puzzle back, yet without saying a word he had carried the cardboard out to the patio.
That had been hours ago, she was sure, and while they made no quick progress into solving it, he kept at it at his lazy pace. There was no hint of frustration in him, no suggestion in his consideration of the impossible puzzle that led her to believe any of it bothered him.
She found herself compelled then to ask him about it. ‘You do realize that this puzzle… it’s not one puzzle, it’s a bunch and these pieces don’t match each other right?’
He turned to look at her, again that smile. There was a slight blur to his eyes but he responded very simply, ‘of course.’
She laughed, though she didn’t know why. She shook her head, her straight blond hair brushing her shoulders as she did. ‘Why doesn’t that bother you?’ He looked at her, right at her, as if he couldn’t make her out, or perhaps like he didn’t know her. ‘It drives me crazy! Why doesn’t it bother you?’
‘It never occurred to me that it was necessary that they matched’

The Labyrinth

She wasn’t sure when she woke up in the labyrinth. Nor was she particularly sure how long she had wandered down its various hallways. At first she walked without real purpose, she was not alone in the labyrinth- she passed people all the time, most of which seemed to be no more sure than she was of where they were going. She made decisions based off her gut, being completely incapable of deciding why one path might be preferable to another. A right at one fork, a left at another, the third path from the left at a crowded intersection. For some immeasurable amount of time she carried on like that.

Sometimes she felt like she made progress, the labyrinth was not always the same. Some time in the past she had left the portion made of even measured red bricks aligned in some pattern she could not recognize but was sure was there for a section made of high thick green hedges. There had been other sections too. The area of the patterned mosaics, the cut tiles in a seemingly endless collection of shades of blue. The portion made of alabaster white walls with the dirt path. The one she distantly remembered with walls like red clay and flooring of mismatching yellow pebbles. Their relation to each other seem completely arbitrary, and while at first she was sure she was making progress over time she lost her sense of faith that she was going the right way.

A crisis of faith inspired her to change her approach, and she resolved to ask for assistance from the first person that she came across that seemed to know where they were going. This was no easy task, for while the labyrinth was far from empty, the majority of the residents shuffled down the hallways glossy eyed saying little to each other. There seemed to be no wisdom in acquiring the input of someone who seemed to know no more than she did.

Finally she came across someone different. She was not sure if it was because of his age, visible in the stooped nature of his shoulders, his subtle constant hand wringing, and the slow blinking consideration of his clear eyes or if it was the way he sat rather comfortably on a bench between two portions of the labyrinth- the high green hedges meeting new walls, shiny black glass like rock, but for some reason he seemed different than the others.

-Do you know the way?- she asked him.

He looked up to her, he had been staring down the path from which she had just come, considered her with his nearly white blue eyes.

- I do not know ‘the’ way, but I know ‘a’ way.- he responded. She cocked her head and squinted at him. She considered for a second leaving the old man and continuing on until she found someone who had a more emphatic answer but she was impatient, it had taken her quite some time to find this man. She concluded if she came across someone who seemed more knowledgeable that she would simply change guides, and that even if not conclusive, some guide was better than none.

-Will you show me your way?- she asked.

He shrugged, stood up slowly. He loomed over her, turned to face the obsidian hallway and waved her to follow him. She trudged after him.

He took a left at the first fork, as well as the fifth, and the seventh. At an intersection without hesitation he walked to the third path, at the following one he took the second. He walked slowly, and he seemed to drag his feet as he did, a little thing that over time began to annoy her. But at no point in time did he seem to not know exactly where he was going and she swallowed her frustration because of that.

The glassy walls of the hallway had no character, no recognizable features, there were no signs or hints. And she wondered how long it had taken him to learn this path, a small vein of fear rose up in her heart, and for a moment she was very happy to have met this old man.

Suddenly she saw the end of the obsidian hallway, it opened to a wide area. In the wide area to the left was a bench and spread out like directions on a compass were various hallways, each of different colours and themes.

The old man sat down on the bench. She was not pleased.

-Which way do I go?- she asked.

He considered each other paths. Then shrugged and responded -It doesn’t matter-

- How can it not matter?-

- Each path is as good as the next.- he said.

- So they all lead out of here?-

- Out?- there was confusion in his voice, and he squinted at her as he looked at her.

- Yes out! Out! Which path leads out of the labyrinth?-

- None of them of course. - he said. She could hear the confusion in his voice.

- But how do I get out then? Which way do I go? I want to get out of this labyrinth- she stated angrily.

She saw the confusion on his face give way to the softest look of sadness, and with a slight shaking of his head he said - Child, there is no out. The labyrinth is all there is.-