Time with her was like wrestling a polar bear.

The polar bear! The slightly-confused ursine cousin, the snow-kissed emblem of the unintentionally cute, the sharp-tooth predator quite capable of making a meal of lesser mammals.

I?

I am miracle fruit. Freeze-dried ice cream. An hibiscus amid champagne.

I am the tracks in the snow.

a fox ran for the hill
red-tailed, I followed
only to lose
her, at the edge of the wood.

she was too small and I
too much of a thing not meant
for small spaces.

so I let her go

I have a tangled, mangled, mouthful of words. They’re sharp enough to cut into my gums, long enough to gouge my cheeks. And the longer I hold them in, the more they pile up.

This last year has been interesting: I went hang-gliding at Kitty Hawk, chased crabs by flashlight on the beach, wrote (and acted in) a one-act play, taught a class, destroyed a car, bought a car, rode the Harry Potter ride at MGM (twice), walked with sharks and swam with dolphins in the Bahamas.

I attended the short film festival in DC, caught the Book of Mormon in New York, participated in Santarchy in Pittsburgh (as Hobo-Santa), and watched a woman strip while putting together Mouse Trap (burlesque rocks!).

Not to mention stopping by a sex positive convention, assisting at a naughty freak show by standing on the back of a woman laying face and chest-first in ground glass, taking private harmonica lessons, changing employers, sword-fighting in a parking lot, and hiking by moonlight.

And this Saturday I’ll be hosting my first murder mystery dinner at my house.

So – I’m still here.

Busy.

But here.

You are not lost amongst dark angels; the pillars of light you dance around are not meant to illuminate.

But burn.

We all have strings. From wrist to wrist, from throat to throat. Tying us to our secrets, our hungers, our friends, our family.

Yours are not mere strings; you have wrapped yourself in barbed wire.

“Why are you waiting for the thunderstorms?” she asked.

How could I not? I answered.

Because the moments before a thunderstorm are a precipice where the whole world holds its breath.

Because when it comes, it comes with a torrent of rain. It doesn’t tap at the windows, it knocks hard enough to make music.

Because the space between the lightning and thunder is where god would exist, and the thunder itself is the moment before fear, the moment of fear, and the moment after fear, all rolled into one glorious sound.

Because it is Noah’s flood. Because It is purifying and terrifying and beautiful in the way only terrible and great things can be.

Her bare feet rested atop the dashboard and she caught me glancing at her legs. She flashed a smile, and said, “So where are we going?”

“There’s a novelty museum up ahead. Pet rocks, pink flamingos, Mexican bouncing beans. Little robots that make tea.” I said.

She laughed, “There are not!”

“And a bit further beyond there is an old motel with those vibrating beds that cost a nickel to activate.”

She glanced at the car’s empty ashtray filled with coins, “Do we even have nickels?”

It was a good question. I grinned, shrugged, and focused on the road, which was lined with evenly spaced palm trees. Although there were no cars ahead of us, the trees brought the three-second rule to mind: pick a fixed object in the road; once the car in front of you passes it, count to three slowly. If you pass the fixed object before reaching three, you are following too close.

The rule is meant to keep you at a safe distance. To avoid collisions.

Abruptly, the neatly spaced palm trees on the left were broken up by a gas station sign. I glanced at the gas gauge – it was edging perilously close to the E. I pulled into the station and up to one of the pumps.

“Why don’t you grab us some snacks?” I asked, opening my door. She followed suit, hopping out of the car. She paused just long enough to look back at me with another smile before disappearing inside the station.

I studied the gas pump. Just how far could we go without any more gas? We certainly wouldn’t collide with anything if we weren’t moving.

Could we?

I counted to three slowly, replaced the gas hose without using it, and followed her inside.

almost. kissed
you made it seem like an inevitable
accident.
a trick on fate

almost. spoken
somewhere between magic
and stuttering photographs
trying so hard to create space
where it shouldn’t be.

almost. sweet
the way you read to sleep.
more real, I think
then anything else you’d said

almost. shared
a phrase or passage
for a moment
the best kind of neighbors

almost. enough

What happens when you stop feeding a wolf?

It gets more cunning, perversely more patient.

And hungrier.

Room by room, I have built a house.

In one room I have placed specific touchstones of memory.

Smooth stone, an invitation.

I recall a kiss in a bathroom stall; she had excused herself from her table where she sat with her friends. I caught her, and it was just a single kiss, a single hungry kiss, but it stayed with me for hours. From the first, I remember her eyes dancing for me.

Another touchstone, another memory.

I remember a thigh, found under a bridesmaid’s dress. She was well past tipsy before I took her to dinner, and on the drive home I slid my hand under the blue of her dress. We kissed in front of the house she was staying at, and we may have kissed before, but this was the kiss I remember. The warmth of her lips, how easy it all was.

Another touchstone, another memory.

A girl with dusky skin leaning over my desk. Her hips moved, an invitation, and I remember tasting her. She never stopped moving, not when my hands pressed along the back of her thighs to guide her closer, not when I threw her back against my leather chair, not when her hands became buried in my hair.

Another touchstone, another memory.