like goo

We loved like goo...sticky, messy, sweetly oozing into the empty places. We looked with googley eyes upon one another. We slobbered like happy Pavlovian dogs at the sight of one another. We danced--my head nestled into his neck, his arm pulling me tightly to him, our rhythms . . . .

I wish I could look into his eyes, look long enough, deep enough, to see if I am in there somewhere, to find him, the messy man who loved me. I would find the poison and I would find the antidote. I would rewrite the script.

One-two

One-two, buckle my shoe, three-four, shut the door. . . . Open the gates, lock the gates, sunrise, sunset.

Who is locked in, who is locked out, what is locked away? Do the spirits slip effortlessly between the posts, whispering past the chains and padlocks? Perhaps they are grateful for the quiet, the stopping of traffic and no trampling upon the ground. Perhaps the locking of the gates allows them to roam freely, safely, unobserved.

Midnight Rider

This is not the life I thought I would be living.

We are on the phone and my friend's voice squeezes through the wires, bounces off the cell towers. Her words hit me from all directions.

Nor, I, dear friend, nor I.

Her husband dead, suddenly, accidentally. She does not doubt his devotion. He is present in every cell, every corner, yet he is missing, missing from the kitchen doorway, the ride to work, his side of the bed, the other side of the argument.

My husband . . .  I do not know what to say. My husband is forbidden to speak to me, to touch me. It is for the best, but was not always so.

Sometimes grief comes from nowhere, that vast nothingness. It appears as a cowboy hat or an Allman Brothers song:

Well, I've got to run to keep from hidin'
And I'm bound to keep on ridin'
And I've got one more silver dollar

And I don't own the clothes I'm wearing
And the road goes on forever
And I've got one more silver dollar

And I've gone by the point of caring
Some old bed I'll soon be sharing
And I've got one more silver dollar
But I'm not gonna let 'em catch me, no. . . .

(copyright Gregg Allman and Robert K. Payne)

I hear him in the high notes and I quiver. The longing I thought was gone ... is not. It courses through me like quicksilver and I wonder (as does my friend), where is that man who awakened every passion? Does he no longer exist? What form has he taken? Of this earth or not, what does it matter? All is changed. In an instant, all is . . . I don't know is all.

Midnight. Longing is like quicksilver, toxic and pulsing through my veins. I  play the song again and again.