that was it all for the best?

She turns to him and he sighs and smiles, reaches for the camera at his hip. Whirrrrrr-click. The Nikon flashes in her face and her look of surprise is permanent now, a part of the record. He only sees the world after it's gone, after the camera has captured it. I guess he's just a few seconds behind the rest of us, like any good historian, and his entire persona captures it. He dresses stylishly, but, with a certain sense of dilation, like he bought all his clothes year ago, all on one day, so it's not out of date but just a bit faded. His smile and laughs and gestures all come half-a-second too late and are always preceded by the whirrrr-click. She pulls at a forelock and wonders what this must look like to him.


She in white, him in grey. A beautiful couple, they all said, even the bitter last-minute-invite, with his scuffed loafers and tried-to-quit-but-not-really cigarettes. The bride sat with this sad man for a few minutes outside of her tents, appropriating his bad habits. He smiled and tapped the cylinder against his slacks. They didn't say anything, but when he was done, he stood and extended his hand. She grabbed it and made as it to get up, but instead, he shook her hand and walked off towards the beach. She watched as he walked off and turned a corner and she only felt the urge to follow him a little bit. When people would tell stories later, they said he probably went to the bar at the end of the pier and probably got too drunk to even remember their was a ceremony, but, she imagined he took off his loafers. Stretched his calves. And dissolved into the sand.


Him in black, she in white. The man made his triumphant return from the earth and the husband looked tight and sad. They stood next to each other, before the casket, and the loss tied them together inextricably, feeling it like no-one else in the pavillion did, because they both lost her before their time. They had just picked out a nice place together, a dog. They were whispers of children even. For the man, they barely exchanged feelers. He was scared, then, and ran and ran. They called it a foolish prelude, when they called it anything. But the man and the husband knew different, because they could both stand there before her and feel equally in the right, that they both deserved their post to watch over her.


Him in dark red, the man in black. He slipped out of his seat, patting his mother slightly on the shoulder. He died in a car crash, coming back from Connecticut. His brother was being ordained in the Church and they were both driving back to the ancestral home in New Hampshire when a semi-truck turned into them and killed him instantly. The brother survived, "miraculously" some would say afterward. The man just happened to be in New England at the time and heard of his death through a friend that knew them all, that even knew them when the man and she were briefly in the same picture. She told him to go, to show support. No-one there knew him, but, he knew the person he was supporting was lone gone anyway. She died from a fall. The top of a cliff in Argentine, she lost her footing and tumbled. Her body was found floating, hair astray, in a clear pool of snow runoff basin, 2000 feet below. The man was in Boston at the time, but, heard the news almost immediately. When his friends would talk about that night, because he never told them, they would say he left abruptly. The strangers that knew him briefly after that would say he came abruptly and was a sturdy drinker, a lover of people and a genuinely hearty spirit. No man would ever say that about the man again.

if this is his domain

I've been looking at pictures of dinosaurs for hours and listening to Imogen Heap and I think my brain has developed a new neural channel that links pictures of t-rexes to an intimate but alien fear of the divine. I won't be able to look at their retarded little claws ever again without feeling an existential pang.

The days build on top of each other, I feel like they are building a path to the thing I've been feeling scraping out the inside of my chest, making a nest in my collapsed sternum, like a squatter in a tenement. Each day it rips at me more and more, demanding to be let out. I've been fighting equally hard to keep it contained, to keep my life the same humdrum mess of love and tradition it has been my whole life, but, I don't feel like I keep it up. Whether or not, I feel like my potential is taking over the reigns and no amount of push-back will keep it contained. Maybe this is just the sugary-sweet deception of springtime, but, I feel like it's more.


I wonder if she knows how much I miss her. Probably best to keep her in the dark, I feel like I've worn out my welcome. She seems distant now, cold, maybe even uncaring. That could be just a front, of course, I've hurt her many times but when I turn to her, I feel like she turns back. She talks about him alot, but, he's distant and I feel like she feels tricked and is looking for something that doesn't really exist. I can only hope I will not be banned from her life for my mistakes, prolific as they are. I've come to love her, maybe have loved her for longer than I knew, and I can't lose it.

"the dickensian aspect"

portland has been nothing but good to me ever since i said i'd leave her for sunnier pastures. i've seen her a parties that i always was peering in from behind thick glass, like a dickenisan non-situation. i've become introduced to her friends, her hangouts, her corners that i've only begun to inhabit. it's like the threat of leaving is what finally made her realize what she was missing out on.


it's been a good deal for the both of us though and i'll be sad to leave all the fun stupidity and less-fun-but-monumentally-more-important PCC behind. it's either the palm trees of san diego or the hamsterdam of the northwest, tacoma. either way, i'll be happy, but, i'd really rather stick around, so, if you know something, pass that on.

anyway, saturday was fun. i spent the first half with ashley and the second half with boyd, ending at around 5 am after-hours at angelo's. today will possibly be more of the same, but, emily, what are you doing for your birthday? lemme know.

i hope i'm not gonna leave, but if i do, the city is giving me one hell of a send-off. let's keep it going