to whom it may concern:

I should be worried about you right now. I should be thinking about the facts at hand…the distance, the pressure, the pace, the possiblities, the lies and the unadulterated truth. my mind should be racing between calling you, or texting you, or waiting… a day, or two, or twelve. I should be consumed by you…

but I’m not.

all I can think about is the smell of the air blowing through my office window. and vanilla frozen custard dipped in toasted coconut from the freeze. and the beach. and bleachers at wrigley. and how hot vegas is in 105 degree weather. and fall-off-the-bone ribs. and the way the red white and blue fireworks reflect on to lake michigan on the 4th of july. and how beautiful the open road looks under a glaring sun, just glimmering with sights and scenes of americana unknown, yet somehow still foreign and exotic. and fairs with cotton candy and ferris wheels. and cold, cold beer on a boat cruising through the chain. and my birthday.

I truly think that people who live in year-round warm climates cannot possibly understand the feeling that is summer. because it is a feeling, and not just a season. it is nostalgia. it is aphrodesia. it is a three month long, hot, torrid, passionate fling with life. and I love it more than just about anything.

lately on several occasions I’ve recalled those nights I used to spend at the barn. the tailgates down, the bonfires, the strawberry wine, and skinny dipping, and what it meant to be 17 and completely carefree, and have the entire world at my fingertips. to be wanted in ways that I didn’t even understand, and to want nothing. I think it’s time to get back to that. it’s time to get back to that summer.

That summer, I wrote this:

we spoke like two loves of long ago
but with a certain bitterness emanating and diffusing,
from and between the two of us.
amidst the calculated content of our conversation
all that I can recall

are the two a.m. escapades,
so young, throwing beer cans at trains,
crushing quarters smooth on the steel tracks,
and running back to your house breathlessly
with the ghostly whistles ringing in our ears
growing more faint and haunt in the distance.

the sticky summer air
that made our clothes cling
sweetly to our bodies
moist with sweat.
the tops of trees aflame,
sacrifices in our worship to the pregnant august sun.
your index finger wandering slowly along my lower back,
arching in efforts to escape.

the night the eight of us
removed our clothes, and our skin,
bare to each other, and the world, and the freeway,
and everyone else disappeared for some moments
and we made love to each other in our minds.
we swam by starlight, and streetlight,
and savored all the simplicity of shadow
and sunrise, and knew
we were losing ourselves.

Do I dare ask if our thoughts are still connected?

the spring sucks

you in.

with all of it’s moisture, and fragrant blooming, and warm cloudy days that turn to rainy sun, and all it’s contradiction, and it’s perpetual feeling of promise. Like there is something coming. Like the change in the season and the change in the weather is bound to bring some other change. The change that I’ve been searching for… or rather just waiting to stumble across.

I speak to you after not having seen you in years. And it is cordial, and brief, and we talk about the way things are, the way things have been. And you have the life I dream of. You have your sweetheart, and your country, and your discipline, and your autonomy, and a measured level of success.  And it was all a mistake of sorts.  It was all just something that happened for you.

It hits me that, that is it.
I want to find it, but I don’t want to look.
I think mostly just because I’m scared of what is actually there.
I want to be taken, but I don’t know to where, and I don’t know by whom, and I’m not sure that it matters.
To everywhere and nowhere, and all the places in between, that are exactly the same as this one, with the same characters, just different names.

Is it that I’m helpless, or hopeless, or just that I’ve lost all hope?
When the heart searches for contentment, where is it supposed to look?
How do you know that you’ve found what you’re looking for once you find it?

But it worked for you, so why can’t it work for me?
And why should I look, when I can just wait for it to find me? They say you’ll never find it if you do.
I want to stare it in the face. I want to look at it the way you’ve seen it, but from my own angle, and know it just the same.