Sometimes I go to
the park and walk the trails intertwining all over it. Looks like a green, very green ocean; smells like dandelions. I will stare at every face I find here. Stare them down until they realize I am looking so I turn away.
Other times it is the grocery store. When I am buying milk and am inspecting the lettuce heads for damage and I sense someone's presence. When I think I am alone in the canned vegetables isle and I smell old cologne that I haven't been turned on by in years.
I will spin around quickly and think maybe I will catch your face.
I never have. I may never.
I said, "I have never said I'm sorry for the things that I inadvertently did."
I fucked things all up for him. Because I was twenty one and selfish, and jealous, and I did things because they would benefit me.
I said, "But I am sorry. Because we both
lost. But I could have done without."
He said, "You'll never get it."
I never saw him again.
I will be
riding the subway train and feel a warm body in the seat behind me. Sometimes the body has a low voice, and for a brief moment, I will need to use all of my self-control just to not turn around.
At times I will be walking to work through the crowded streets and I will see short dark hair with sideburns and black frame glasses twenty feet ahead. I stretch my neck out a little further to see. Then dart my eyes quickly to the ground when
my presumptions are wrong.
Once, I went to the
bookstore and there you were, flipping through this book on guitars. All smiles from ear to ear and crows feet. Long hair and beard that
I did not remember. I told the cashier I forgot my checkbook and left.
I got it.