365 Attempts (At Life)

When you held me close, you smelled like love songs.

I drove down the old main road where I grew up. Past where the first cinema used to be. Past the Chinese restaurant that is now a healthy breakfast place. Past the vacant lot that was once our Royal Bank, the one where my mom got me my first bank book. Sitting there at the stoplight, I looked at the sidewalks I used to walk on. I squinted and saw myself there. The ghost of little girl me. She was kicking at pebbles in the heat, waiting for mom to come out of Steinberg’s grocery store. I could hear her humming a tune to herself as she drew hearts on the wall with her hand. She turned suddenly, shaded her eyes from the sun, and looked at me in my car. She didn’t seem to recognize me, but waved anyway. The light turned green before I had a chance to wave back.

You are not here. You're a mirage of accumulated pixels.

A lot of things are revealed, when it unravels. So when you find yourself disappointed by the big pile of yarn at your feet, ask yourself why you keep pulling the thread.

I haven’t felt every feeling. Surely there’s something left. Not just glimpses that get swallowed up inside a vacuum when I’m dreaming. And what is a dream? If not a feeling you had once that morphs until you wake up. Pieces of everything and remnants of fiction. Scattered and strange. Were you a dream? Or did you just feel like one?

There's something about you and the moon that I can't quite separate. 

That’s the thing with emotions, just when you think you have reigned them in, something, unexpectedly, sets them off.  And your feelings run amok.  Coloring your night an entirely different shade. Of red. Blue. Or grey. Until they are satisfied that they have your attention. And that they've left enough paint on your hands, to finish the job.

I met him by the pool in Miami. He was a few chairs away from me and happened to see me mumble a ‘fuck you’ under my breath while violently throwing my phone into my bag. “That can’t be good,” he said. I looked at him, and I don’t know why, but I told him. I had just found out, via text, that the guy I’d been seeing on and off for years, whom I was desperately in love with, was dating someone new and that it was starting to get serious. He winced, then chuckled, “OK hold on, I think I can beat that. I’m here in Miami for a friend’s wedding. Well, just prior to coming here, I had asked my girlfriend to move in with me and instead she dumped me.” “Yikes,” I replied, “What a sad pair of tourists we are.” He offered to buy me a cold beer, but I noticed he was drinking something stronger and I said, “No. I want that. What is it?” "Scotch." "Yes. I want scotch." He smiled. We commiserated our individual love stories in complete detail and talked about our li