It's cold in here. The air outside a winter's breath. The feel of slurpee freeze running through your skin. It'll warm up soon enough (it is Florida after all) but early mornings here are like this a lot. The hardwood floors and paper-thin windows of this old apartment -- the air slices right through. You feel it under your toes and across your chest.
Weather like this calls out for bed blankets wrapped up tight around your feet. Sends me to the back of the closet for the clothes I hardly ever wear. Opposites attracting, extremes melting the ice. I walk around the floors in bare feet with a hooded sweater pulled close over my head.
A jealous cat meddles with the keyboard while I type. Hunting for music heard last night at a club keeps me from focusing on the task at hand. I toy with the hood-strings on this sweater like a child standing at a school bus stop. One this way pulls the other closer. A quick pull in the opposite direction sounds like a turntable scratch against my ear. Little inventions. Games of all sorts. A little boy playing in his room alone.
Yesterday I looked at photographs. Yesterday I couldn't. Yesterday I needed to get off my ass, but yesterday for whatever reason.. I didn't. Maybe sometimes we need to dissapear. To sleep like hibernation and get away from ourselves. To recharge and cleanse, to obsess and think too much, to let go and go and go. I ate leftovers. I played guitar. I watched James Coburn movies and suffered through English-language dubs of Doomed Megalopolis.
Then when the light was gone and the credits were rolling, I pulled myself together and opened up the door. Black boots and shirt -- a car stereo turned up way too loud, I headed out into the dark. What I find are fake trees and a lighted dance floor. A DJ stuck in the 80's, people smoking too much, and bartenders who look dissapointed when you order a beer made in America. Little inventions. Games of all sorts.
It's strange how oddly comfortable I am there. How much I find myself not looking for anything at all. Bring me another beer while I watch the faces all around. Joke with the pretty girls, make room for the folks behind me. Messages to a partner in crime half a state away. In the light of the cel phone screen a face appears. A hand beckons. Lights flash, music pumps. This is my friend, it's her birthday tonight.
Is this the same guy who was staring out the window this morning? The same child playing alone in his room, fighting back emotions from a phone call that wasn't supposed to get that heavy, but somehow always does?
Drink two more, sign the bill. Turn the key, drive home alone.
You feel it everywhere.But the weird thing about it is that instead of going to the thermostat and pushing up the heat, I'm leaving it right where it is. I'm letting the ceiling fans run like propellors, letting the air swirl around me, standing up the skin on my arms and neck like rabbit fur scrunched up against the snow.
Weather like this calls out for bed blankets wrapped up tight around your feet. Sends me to the back of the closet for the clothes I hardly ever wear. Opposites attracting, extremes melting the ice. I walk around the floors in bare feet with a hooded sweater pulled close over my head.
The air before your breath filled with memories. Steam rises from the mug, writes names in the sky. You find yourself wishing someone was still there for you to curl up with under the sheets - not in a lonely sense where you lament the absence, but with a warmth that comes from simply embracing the feeling that this closeness brings, cupping your hands around your want for it - even if it is (and perhaps may always be) far, far away.Mornings like this, coffee tastes richer.
Mornings like this, shivers feel deeper.
A jealous cat meddles with the keyboard while I type. Hunting for music heard last night at a club keeps me from focusing on the task at hand. I toy with the hood-strings on this sweater like a child standing at a school bus stop. One this way pulls the other closer. A quick pull in the opposite direction sounds like a turntable scratch against my ear. Little inventions. Games of all sorts. A little boy playing in his room alone.
Mindless. Kitten-curled. A little more hungover than I was expecting to be, but not minding the ache.You'd laugh if you saw me acting like this
But I love the sound, so I'll tell you anyway
Not minding at all.Yesterday was so weird. So empty, so hollow. Waking with a feeling like need. With a hole inside me that didn't have a bottom. I paced the floor, I paced the channels. I dressed and dressed and dressed to go out, to do laundry, to run, to escape.. but I didn't go. I circled this cage with a wild look in my eyes, but turned every time at the exact moment I needed to so I wouldn't collide with the bars that keep me here.
Yesterday I looked at photographs. Yesterday I couldn't. Yesterday I needed to get off my ass, but yesterday for whatever reason.. I didn't. Maybe sometimes we need to dissapear. To sleep like hibernation and get away from ourselves. To recharge and cleanse, to obsess and think too much, to let go and go and go. I ate leftovers. I played guitar. I watched James Coburn movies and suffered through English-language dubs of Doomed Megalopolis.
Then when the light was gone and the credits were rolling, I pulled myself together and opened up the door. Black boots and shirt -- a car stereo turned up way too loud, I headed out into the dark. What I find are fake trees and a lighted dance floor. A DJ stuck in the 80's, people smoking too much, and bartenders who look dissapointed when you order a beer made in America. Little inventions. Games of all sorts.
It's strange how oddly comfortable I am there. How much I find myself not looking for anything at all. Bring me another beer while I watch the faces all around. Joke with the pretty girls, make room for the folks behind me. Messages to a partner in crime half a state away. In the light of the cel phone screen a face appears. A hand beckons. Lights flash, music pumps. This is my friend, it's her birthday tonight.
Enjoy, evoke, evaporate.It's over as soon as it starts. Maybe it meant something, it's cool if it didn't. Smile. Wink. Hug. Wave.
Is this the same guy who was staring out the window this morning? The same child playing alone in his room, fighting back emotions from a phone call that wasn't supposed to get that heavy, but somehow always does?
Drink two more, sign the bill. Turn the key, drive home alone.
Wrap tight in blankets,
a smile inside the cold.
[Listening to: The Smiths, "This Charming Man"]
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