Third Meeting with Pedro

Pedro and I walked into the Barnes and Noble café from different directions, yet at the same time; like the magnetic fields of solenoids manage to form a complete circle. It occurred to me that we were wizards, in the Tolkeinian sense: “A wizard is never late, nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to.”

            We managed to find a table (a miracle in and of itself – I was reminded of Christ the Redeemer in Argentina. Though Pedro was from Brazil, it still seemed relevant, somehow.) and sit down. I pretended not to notice the napkin, still damp from the condensation of the drink that had been consumed by its previous occupant, and asked how everything was going.

            It hit me right as I sat down that every single question I’d had lined up for him was no longer in my cranial capacity. I tried to conceal my panic by clearing my throat, muttering my curses so he wouldn’t hear.

            Quickly straightening up and doing my best to think of basic icebreakers, I asked him how his week was going. He talked about a speech he had to give the following day over the impact of the Internet; I’m in a cyberliteracy class, so I found this fascinating. He mentioned how everyone seems to be connected over the Internet, and I spoke about a recent phenomenon that occurred to me the previous day. My favorite band ever was doing a tour of Southeast Asia, and they’d been to Japan within the week. In my Japanese course when I was diligently taking notes (read: Facebook), I found a girl from their concert and spoke with her in Japanese about the band. We’re now “diligently taking notes” friends. Pedro agreed with me about the insanity of never meeting someone but finding something in common with them nevertheless.

            The conversation turned to books, something I welcomed as a Writing major. Pedro spoke of his favorite movie adaptations of books (he blurted Harry Potter so fast I thought his tongue was on fire), and I settled in to listen to an international paradigm on Western literature. He talked about Percy Jackson and the Olympians, of which I’d heard but with which I wasn’t familiar. I found out that it revolved around Greek mythology and that history was his favorite subject in school.

            “Wait. If history is your favorite subject in school, why are you an engineering major?” I said.

            “Well, I like the money,” said Pedro. That I couldn’t disagree with. The conversation went back to books, and something uncomfortable kept gnawing at the back of my mind, like a termite in a wooden cage.

            “So, question,” I said, to preface it. Pedro looked at me quizzically. “You know the Twilight books?” He grimaced and nodded reluctantly. Internally I thanked God. “In Brazil, is there a rabid fanbase for it like there is in the USA?” He nodded.

            “Yes, um. The first day that the movie come out in Brazil, there was…many girls. All screaming, like ahh.” He imitated a prepubescent girl’s first opposite-sex-inspired paroxysms. “All of them very, uh…round, too.”

            I laughed. He puffed out his cheeks and moved his arms away from his sides and mimed waddling as best he could from the chair in which he sat. I snorted and covered my face with my hand as he made a gun with his finger and mimed shooting himself in the head. After I caught my breath we spoke some more about movies.

            He said his favorites were the Harry Potter movies – I wasn’t surprised in the least. He asked me for my answer, and I said Inception. Pedro looked at me like I had grown wings. After a brief interlude of mutual confusion, I realized that the title was probably different in Brazil than in America, and one well-timed Google search later we arrived at an understanding.

            As I left the bookstore, I couldn’t help but think about the similarities we shared, as well as the cultural differences. At the very least, I thought, he had good taste in books.

Second Meeting with Pedro

I met with Pedro in the same place we’d first seen each other – the TCU Barnes and Noble. I was surprised to find him wearing the exact same sweatshirt I’d met him in, but I didn’t want to comment on it – who wants to be that guy that immediately points out socioeconomic gaps between the ones who speak English and the ones who don’t?

There weren’t any seats available in the place where we’d had our conversation last time, so I asked if it was okay if we walked and talked at the same time. He agreed, and we held the doors open for each other as we spilled out onto University Drive.

As we started talking, I asked Pedro to remind me whom he lived with again, and he told me his aunt and uncle. I asked him what his uncle was like, and he looked confused, so I rephrased the question.

“What kind of person is he? Your uncle, I mean,” I asked, tilting my head and hoping my sunglasses didn’t make me look too much like a douchebag.

“He’s cool, I guess. Every now and again I don’t like. He doesn’t let me do…” Pedro trailed off, struggling for the words. I waited – I’d like to think I was patient about it, but I’m not going to pass judgment on myself.

Finally Pedro finished his sentence with “…anything I want.” It took a second to register, but I burst out laughing and we launched into a lively debate about the difference between Brazilian law and American law. He said in Brazil the drinking age was 18, and I feigned jealousy – I don’t drink, but I’m sure many students would be extremely envious of Brazilian policy. We continued to talk about how his uncle doesn’t let him perform any “illegals,” as Pedro called them.

After that topic kind of died off, I asked him what he loved the most about America and what he didn’t like. He smiled and told me he loved “everything about this country,” except for the drinking age. He said that not going to bars was really strange because normally, in Brazil, he could just go out and have a couple of drinks at a pub really easily.

Then he said something that really surprised me. We were chatting about American society and he blurts out, “Before I come here, to Texas, I thought there was no beautiful girls here.”

            I tripped over a jutting section of sidewalk, and asked him what he meant by “here”. Pedro said “the US.” I asked if he was serious. He smiled and nodded and began telling me about when he’d visited before. “All I see was…” he puffed out his cheeks and started waddling. “Big girls.”

            I snorted and put a hand over my mouth. “No way!”

            Pedro nodded. “Yeah…and I just realize why I only see the big ones earlier. The pretty girls all are at TCU.”

            I agreed with him. “Yeah, there are some pretty girls here…”

            “No, I mean all the American pretty girls. They here,” Pedro said.

            We had to stop for a minute so I could breathe after laughing so hard my face hurt. I could kind of see his point though. I wondered if he’d ever seen the Showgirls. Then I decided not to bring that up. Robin Williams once said that “men were born with two heads and only enough blood for one to operate at a time.” I assumed that if we kept talking about girls we’d up at some sort of Portuguese-English mixture. Portuguenglish.

After some more banal conversation I used an expression again. This time I was prepared to quickly clarify its usage and context in a way he could understand. He was happy I’d taught him another expression, and I was too. I’d made it a personal goal of mine to teach him a new idiom every time we spoke together. He seemed to take well to that, so I wanted to continue that tradition.

We parted at the stoplight by the library. He asked if we were meeting next week, same time same place. I said yes and walked away.

It seemed strange, how our perceptions of society were so different. But then again, I’ll be in Japan for a month over the summer. Will I be plopped into a strange, unfamiliar territory that someone else knows as their entire world? How will I react to that?

I hope I’ll be as proactive as Pedro has been.

Geometrics and the Buyer of Hats (Growing Up in the 1920's/1930's)

                Walking into the library, I remember feeling particularly intimidated by what I had to ask for. The friendly woman at the desk told me where the old magazines were and advised me to “watch out for the troll,” suppressing a good-natured chuckle. I went downstairs and was instantly overwhelmed by volumes upon volumes of theses, texts, magazines, and works of literary art.

                Moving amongst the leather-bound guards I finally found the section I was looking for: magazines. More accurately, Vogue. The woman at the desk had told me not to worry and that there wouldn’t be any dancing gay men or cone-bra-sporting Madonnas in there, which made me more than a little disappointed. I may or may not have cried in the bathroom at my hopes being dashed. I also may have practiced Vogueing for several hours before my library visit.

                I selected a tome comprised of Vogues from the early 1920’s and staggered back upstairs, stopping by the desk and telling the woman that I’d found the troll and he told me if I’d answered his riddles three he’d give me an overly heavy book. After sitting down, I opened it. My eyes were assaulted by monochrome – there was so much black-and-white! Was color ink more expensive? Is there a way the printers could have introduced color more quickly? I couldn’t decide. And more importantly I didn’t really want to.

                A little backstory – I’m currently in a Roaring Twenties literature class, where my professor has already mentioned Vogue and Vanity Fair numerous times, saying that they embodied the era more thoroughly than any thesis ever could. The fads and how silly they were to some critics, the disillusionment of American youth, the stagnation of optimism as a result of the war and the murmurings of rebellion against Victorian values and sexual mores. It was a wildly changing time, and most that were a part of it were lucky to be so – materialism was rampant, and markets were booming.

                Opening that Vogue – no matter how non-choreographed it might have been – I was transported back into the time that I was studying, learning about the everyday of what had been described to me in books by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and Ezra Pound. It was fascinating; learning what kids my age were growing up with, noting the slang peppered through advertisements (“Are you keen on cars?” read one. “A peep into the boudoir of any much sought-after woman…” began another.) and seeing what was being advertised, like bust absorbent lotion (some men just want to watch the world burn) and eye-sparkling cream.

                It’s therefore really easy to see why Amory Blaine took such issue with the materialism of the age – it was everywhere, impossible to escape. Which is why the article I found on “Buying a Hat with the Parisienne” was so interesting to me. It speaks of Paris in the sense of fashion, whereas I had already learned about it in a literary sense. It boggles my mind that Americans could go to Paris to escape the mundaneness of their everyday lives and gain a fresh start only to pick up an American vogue and learn of a miniature invasion into their new, romantic, somehow less mundane everyday.

                The detail in the article was extraordinary, but then again that’s to my Google-addled brain, where the answers are just a click away no matter where I am. I’m sure to a kid – hopefully a girl – my age in this time period the article would have been fascinating; invaluable, even. At some points the article reads more like a novel (“If the client, like Madame Errazuriz, is a woman of remarkable taste who has herself the most amusing of conceptions, then, the creation is made by the two, but not without discussion, for the designers are inflexible in regard to this tradition, and, in that, they are quite right.”).

                Coming away from my experience, I was humbled by the idea of the old once being young, and the young that would become old – how droll will our paper-issues of Cosmopolitan, Vogue, Esquire, Rolling Stone seem in comparison to the newer magazines of the future!

                To grow, to mature, to become more – certainly the children of the 1920’s did that, growing up to fight in World War II shortly after living through World War I. My generation has already lived through several catastrophes, though now reporting has become much more focused on the 24-hour news channel, and as such more is being reported. At last I realized the mindset of these characters I’ve been studying. Maybe I have more in common with them than I originally thought.

Bird's Skeleton (Sketch Three)

A couple of nights ago, the perception I thought I had of the world changed dramatically.

There’s a story a lot of you don’t know, and most of you won’t care to. But for the few that do, I’m going to tell it anyway. It needs to be told; I can’t live in the shadow of the past. What once was cannot define me now.

Back when I was in high school I dated this guy. And long story short, he was abusive – most of what I wrote for a long time afterwards was about him. A lot of what I don’t respect about him any more was the way he ended it. I won’t go into detail but suffice it to say it was bad, and due partially to adolescent angst and partially to the Romeo-and-Juliet-esque ideals pushed upon me by the literature I read and the society in which I live (I’m looking at you, Stephenie Meyer) I attempted suicide. Obviously, it didn’t work and I found something worth living for.

But it still took a long time – what felt like forever – to get over what he said, how he acted, how badly my self-esteem was hospitalized because of the agony of that relationship. However, he lived in San Antonio so I graduated high school without a second thought as to him, or if anything could possibly change. I knew he was happy there, and I was happy going to Fort Worth, so I was perfectly fine with my life as it was.

Freshman year came and went and I focused my efforts more on ending my guilty conscience and renewing my self-esteem. It worked, for the most part. Sophomore year brought back Luke Miller as a positive, energetic, uniquely confident individual – in short, happier than I’ve ever been. My high academic performance, vibrant social life, and incredibly supportive family only compounded this idyll.

Then came two nights ago. For those of you not in the know, there’s an application on the iPhone called Grindr, which lets people who buy the app find and talk to users without giving them phone numbers or really much information at all. It’s used primarily by gay men; in fact, that’s who it’s marketed towards. And the app uses your GPS to firstly locate you and secondly order the other users by their proximity to you (i.e., people who are farther away take longer to view because they’re further down the page). I use it mostly for just chat when I’m bored, and every now and again I make a new friend or go on a date with someone.

Wednesday I was browsing the profiles of the guys near me. I was just absentmindedly flicking through people, not really paying attention, more involved in the music I was listening to than any real investment in my actions.

And then I stopped. And I had to force myself to breathe. And I gazed in mute unbelieving horror upon a face I thought I’d pushed from my memory. Labeled with a name I once couldn’t say without vomiting. The height and weight matched my recollection of what he’d told me.

I’d been visited by the Ghost of Christmas Past.

After making sure I wasn’t having a nightmare, I took several minutes to compose myself. It wasn’t what I’d pictured but I could deal with it. It’s a big city, there’s no way we’ll run into each other –

I stopped my panicked justification and checked the location.

He lives less than four miles from campus.

My heart started pounding. The chance we’d see each other just increased exponentially. What if we went to the same restaurant? Or worse, what if he came to campus? My terror increased to a fever pitch.

What if he came here because I came here? What if he tries to get back together with me? What if he sees my profile and puts it all together OH GOD WHAT IF HE KNOWS

I was involuntarily in the fetal position, shaking like a chain-link fence in a hurricane. I had to turn off the app and just lay in bed, controlling my emotions, my panic, my shattering of security. I’d imagine the feeling was similar to being robbed; your last safe haven was gone, collapsed by the intrusion of a singular entity that altogether embodied something so terrifying that it encompassed, if only briefly, your entire soul.

I couldn’t help but cry myself to sleep. I got the feeling that it shouldn’t matter, that I had spent three full years out of his psychological clutches, that it was over, that I was better, that I was stronger, that I was more than this. But it didn’t stop me from that associative regression, that primal fear of the possible.

The morning came slowly, like a snowfall. I roused myself from my uneasy slumber and looked at my phone, still in my hand from the night before. All the fear kept rushing back, and I would have spent the rest of the day looking over my shoulder and keeping away from windows. But it was then that I remembered something a very dear friend of mine once told me:

“The only power he has over you is the power you let him have.”

I knew that everything would be all right then. I had a strong group of friends who would stick up for me if anything went south; if I did run into him I would be the bigger man. I would rise with a vengeance and stay above the waves of my former iniquity; I would conquer the ghosts that had formerly haunted the walls of my head.

I now know: I am ankh personified; I am the scarab beetle after the sandstorm. I am the minstrel singing as Atlantis sinks under the waves. The city isn’t the focal point as much as the song is.

As Plato feverishly wrote, the minstrel sang. And all who witnessed it had a sliver of glass jutting from their memory. Those unwitting bearers of history, I’d imagine, lay awake at night until the day they died, replaying that song in their heads, wondering what secrets the bard had to tell, even as his voice was overcome by water and his harp broken by current.

Even as he drowned, the minstrel sang. And even though I might drown, even though what I fervently wish would not come to pass might end up happening, I will continue my life-song.

No one will have power over me but myself, and I will continue my life until its end with the knowledge conveyed in Henley’s “Invictus”:

I AM THE MASTER OF MY FATE
            I AM THE CAPTAIN OF MY SOUL

My First Meeting with Pedro

I’d never really put much thought into Brazil before. Joao Abbade, or as he liked to call himself (much to my relief), Pedro, was slightly brusque in his dealings with me via email, reducing all of his sentences a la Hemingway to “That is ok,” or “Works,” or something of the sort. This really worried me: I wondered if I’d stumbled into an ESL student that didn’t want to speak English. Or worse, didn’t want to speak.

            I walked into the TCU Barnes and Noble early, setting up my computer and trying to look like I was waiting for someone. Within a matter of minutes a slight, skittish-seeming guy sat down next to me. His eyes were gigantic, and it appeared to me as though he was expecting to meet someone there as well. I leaned in.

            “Are you Pedro?” I asked, leaning forward.

            “Yeah, are you Luke?” he replied, the faintest ghost of a J appearing before the “you”. I smiled and said yes.

            As we shook hands I said “Boa tarde,” or “Good afternoon” in Portuguese. Pedro looked taken aback and I explained to him that I felt as though if he were trying to learn my language and speak with me I should at least learn a little bit of his. He seemed a lot more relaxed after that.

            We started digging in on the basics. Who he was, where he was from, what he wanted to do. I found out he was really into production engineering, and that was what he wanted to study at college back home in Uberaba. We talked a bit over the essence of mathematics, and how I was terrible at it. He thought that was hilarious.

            I really wanted to focus on the superficialities – just the little trivial things about him that made Pedro into Pedro. He seemed to want to know the same things about me. However it became clear that both of us had really transitory attention spans, similar to that of a small rodent. On speed. That was currently drowning in Red Bull.

            I asked him what music he listened to, and he said “All,” pretty quickly, like he wanted to move on. He asked me the same question, and I told him about all the things I was involved in: that I played piano, French horn, and drums; that I’m currently in the TCU men’s choir (Frog Corps); that I’m in a music fraternity as well. He mentioned that his brother played guitar as well. We spoke a little bit more about that.

            Then my friend Kyle walked up and completely screwed up the flow of our conversation. I hadn’t seen him except for maybe twice over the past full year, and he was a guy I shared several incredible experiences with. Nothing earth-shattering, but there’s no way I’ll forget him.

            I introduced him to Pedro and we made lunch plans for the following week, while Pedro sat awkwardly. I apologized to him in Portuguese while Kyle and I worked out a time to eat, and then I returned to Pedro.

            He started talking about sports, and the difference between American attitudes towards athletics and Brazilian attitudes. He said that the big three sports in Brazil are soccer, basketball, and mixed martial arts. Kyle butted in while I ground my teeth good-naturedly and said something about jujitsu that went over even my head. Pedro looked confused, and I quickly changed the subject again.

            Pedro and I started talking about family and languages. He said if you spoke English in Brazil, that used to mean you were way ahead of the game, but now it’s just another requirement. He told me about his cousin, who’s currently studying abroad in France. I mentioned I was traveling to Japan in the summer. He seemed genuinely interested in that.

            And therein lies my main lesson from our first conversation. He and I are remarkably similar in our abandonment points. What I mean by that is that he left his parents to live in America with his aunt and uncle so that he could understand English better before returning to Brazil. I left my parents to understand how to write better before I went out into the real world. When I go to Japan this summer I’ll have the same experience he’s having now – of complete and total immersion in a language I’ve only used in the classroom.

            There’s a feeling of infancy in not knowing a language, and that’s what made the connection between Pedro and I so special – we both understood the vulnerability it put us in. I knew I had to try hard to convince him that I was empathetic about his situation.

            My final question to Pedro was to ask him what he wanted most to learn to do in English. He responded that he didn’t know expressions, and that I should use them whenever I can so he can try to understand. I enthusiastically agreed, and he asked me to give him an example.

             I froze for a few seconds. And then I tried breaking down the phrase “to make a mountain out of a molehill.”

            I have had very few challenges in my life as difficult as that.

            It must have taken thirty minutes. Whether it was confusing “mountain” for “an amount” or asking what a molehill was, or even trying to simplify it by saying “it’s making a big deal of something that isn’t that big of a deal,” only for him to respond with, “What is…deal?”

            After what seemed like an eternity he finally got it. I thanked my stars and then apologized to him for leaving but I had a meeting to get to. He thanked me for my time and we scheduled another meeting for next week. Same day, same time, same place.

            I can’t wait to meet up with him again. Teach him things about the English language that he didn’t know existed. I will be his arbiter, his mediator between the worlds of the classroom and the everyday American occurrences.

            There’s no way I could be more excited.

Peaches and Hot Seats (Sketch Two)

I was sitting in Atlanta, having eaten a burrito that was at least two times bigger than my face, and I was doing my best not to cry.

            Wait, let me back up. That’s not where the story starts.

            I’d never really flown by myself before. Well, not unless you count the times when my parents were sitting in different rows than I was, which I don’t. It was a strange idea – I’d been interested in game shows for as long as I could remember, but I knew that 90% of the people that watched them didn’t try out for fear of rejection. I didn’t know that fear. I signed up and got a confirmation for a Who Wants to Be a Millionaire audition in New York City. I picked the cheapest airline I could and spent all the money I’d saved up for the past year and a half trying to find a cheap hotel. The flight left on June 10^th and went through a connecting flight in Atlanta, with plenty of time in between.

            I prepared constantly between the audition date and the actual flight. Millionaire question archives, watching YouTube videos and trying to get to the answer before the contestant did (though I knew they were told to talk it out). Even delving into Jeopardy territory. Trying to memorize every fact I possibly could. We bought a lavender button-down shirt specifically for the audition. I knew I looked good; I knew I was representing my school; I knew I was undoubtedly prepared.

            So, at 4:00 AM on a nondescript summer Thursday, I woke up in a Red Roof Inn and drove to the terminal where my flight was waiting. I was shaking with anticipation; I’d done this a million times before but never on my own. Never without the nagging looks from my parents telling me to hurry up as I put my belt on backwards, or got “randomly selected” due to the metal in my eyebrow piercing.

            This was my time, this was my moment. I asserted my independence with this step into manhood. I’d read encyclopedias, memorized dictionary entries for words like “kerf,” and bought the plane ticket all of my own accord. I knew much more than I’d ever known; probably more than I ever will know again.

            The blue faux-velvet faux-expensive carpet squeaked under my sneakers as I carried my black leather weekender bag to the plane and sat in utter terror as I unintentionally recalled all the statistics I’d drilled into my brain about plane crashes. 96% of all plane accidents happen during takeoff or landing. Most plane crashes don’t have a secure emergency backup system. Blurs of terror whizzing behind my eyelids. Someone gently touched my arm and asked me if I was a nervous flyer and I shook my head no, though the whiteness of my knuckles as I gripped the armrest indicated otherwise.

            Despite my reservations, the flight to Atlanta was a non-event. People around me wished me luck when I told them the purpose of my trip, and I couldn’t have been happier – or more nervous.

            Atlanta gave me a three-hour layover, and I had no choice but to find some lunch. The connection would put me in New York at about 7:00 PM Eastern time, so I needed to get a big lunch in my system before the long haul ahead. I found a burrito place that reeked of cheap Chipotle knockoffs and names that made you wonder if you’d stepped into an alternate reality where NASCAR was the official national pastime.

            I finally selected my burrito, tastefully titled “The Homewrecker,” and chowed down. While I did that I looked up famous personalities on my iPhone. Edison. Hawthorne. Cummings. Mailer. Tesla.

            Finally, the time came to board the plane. I got everything into position and sat there and waited. And waited. And waited. After an hour of sitting stagnant the pilot informed us that there were some technical difficulties and he needed us to get off the plane.

            Sitting on that strangely brown carpet in Atlanta I started to understand true panic. Every thirty minutes the flight attendants would come on the intercom and announce the flight had been delayed yet again. I did my best to control my breathing. Tried to remember the capital of Liberia. Anything to get my mind off the situation at hand.

            Finally, with all the weight of a sumo wrestler sitting on my chest, I was informed that the flight was cancelled. I immediately called my mother to see if there was any alternate flight I could take that night and still make the audition the next morning. She said she’d look into it.

            The thirty minutes between my mother hanging up and her next call were the strangest emotional roller coaster I’ve experienced to date. I couldn’t tell whether to feel elated, sad, disappointed, or even just stoic. Finally my mother called back and told me, with tears shimmering in her voice, that there was hail in the NYC area and that I wouldn’t be able to make the audition.

            I don’t know about you but I have an auto-bawl feature built in, so whenever my mom starts crying I immediately cry with her. I had to take several deep breaths and tell her not to cry or else I’d start crying and that nobody likes watching a grown man cry in public, it’s just awkward. I kept reassuring her that yes, it was important to me, but yes, we’d find another way. I had the hotel voucher for the night. I had a shuttle to take me there free of charge. I’d be fine.

            After a disappointed night in a hotel five minutes from the airport – which, holy God, they couldn’t have given me a room that wasn’t directly across from a spotlight, or barring that at least blackout curtains – that made me feel like I wasn’t in Atlanta but rather Alaska, I hopped a flight back to Dallas the next morning. When I touched down and got through security, I saw my mom waiting for me.

            Nothing could have made me happier. I hugged her and told her how happy I was to be home. She expressed her disappointment and I did too, but I knew things always had a way of turning up roses.

            I learned an important lesson that day. Things that happen to you will inevitably, invariably happen. No matter what you do, the world will spin and you are at its mercy. It is what you do to recover from those things that makes you who you are in the aftermath. I came of age in my ability to handle things out of my control, and in my ability to bounce back from unexpected circumstances.

            Eventually, I made it to New York that summer. And I did audition for “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” But that’s another story, for another time.

(Potential)'/The Hours Dissolve (Valentine's Day Poetry)

I often imagine

(no hesitance in this

thin cotton cocoon)

That the snickering of gravel

Is your voice carried on the wind

That your name

(whispered among the

buzzingceaseless

cicadas humming

everreadycrickets)

Is a page torn from

My journal and

(I have never

written a thing in it)

I just have to find

What I used to be

In ink on the paper

(an iridescence)

Maybe you are the

(luminescent staff)

heart that beats

beneath this parchment

(thewindinthecurtains)

A glass cathedral

(standing only in memory)

Tangled into sheen

Among the copper wires

(mustyoubreathe)

As I breathe while you breathe,

Is there not a connection?
(a spider’s sleek thread,

spinning slumber into nostalgia)

Is Arachne weaving us together?

Or has Cassandra torn us apart

Before we can do it ourselves?

Love is

(breathingwithyou

beingwithout)

(allofmyeverything)

nothing I can’t wait for.

(time will

tick

me

away) into the

lifestream i

dissolve

and your bones will become my bones

and your ears will hear what I have heard

and I will tie your soul around my wrist

and know what it means to float into eternity

there will be no

fanfare of trumpets only the

swelling of strings the

ringing of echo of silence

time will take

my eyes and replace them with

rose petals

time will pick

its steady way through the

patches of light on your skin

time will allow

me to begin

breathe

turn

an unfinished thought—