6:15 and a fresh wound opens, tender and warm and easy to mistake for kindness. I keep waiting for a sting that never comes. By now I know patience is relative. By now I know that at 7 the taho vendor will arrive, his voice ringing clear and true. I wonder what happens on the days he doesn’t feel like getting up, what pushes him out of bed, if the floors in his house are cold at dawn. By now I know that if I look out my window at 7:30, a black schnauzer and a cream shih tzu will be enjoying their morning walk. The schnauzer wears a diaper. The shih tzu pulls on its red leash. They seem like they’re friends but I’m never sure if that’s because they didn’t have a choice. By now I know the power of proximity. The danger of it. How a small, silly thing can take up the entire frame. How we let it.
Always there is a seam from yesterday I’d failed to sew shut promptly or meticulously enough. Everything can be undone in a single, casual tug. By now I know there’s no other solution than to pick up the needle and thread and close the gap. Try not to worry that something will end up unraveling anyway.
There is so much new music and none of it sounds like home.
The evenings are lined up like books on a shelf. There is familiar food on the table. Sometimes a glass of wine, sometimes tea that burns the tongue. Whatever signals the mind to rest. Maybe the thing about comfort is that you can never really seek it out. That you just wait for it to land softly where you are.
Mostly the streets are quiet at dark. Not much happens around here.
But some nights the cats are in heat and they call out for their mates, sounding like children crying or riding a rollercoaster. On the precipice of that empty, swooping, exhilarating, terrifying drop, the noise we make is the same. Some nights the wind howls and the rain click-clacks on the keyboard roof. By now I know patience is a gift. There’s a rhythm that persists. There’s a story in there somewhere. You can press send when you’re ready.
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