surveys: flours
What’s your favorite memory which you’re not certain was real?
Who cares for the person you care for most, as much as you do?
Has anyone ever broken your heart without knowing your name?
When did you last look into the mirror and see something beautiful looking back?
Would you see something impossible if you looked behind you right now?
What’s the last dream to make you feel bad in a way you couldn’t understand?
What’s the idea you had? You know the one.
Is there anything you love so much that you never need to think about it?
When you laugh so hard that your eyes close, what color do you see?
- I’ve now found three different notes to myself, going back at least six years, which all say it’s “very telling” that the “one thing” I can put into words or on paper directly involves the “sense of touch.” I know that they’re referring to the emotional temperature.. thing, feeling, whatever the right word for it may ultimately be. I don’t know what it’s supposed to tell, exactly, but I do know how drunk I must have been when writing at least two of those notes and enough liquor makes the details both critically important and incomprehensible.
- These were from a conversation with someone who I just put down at the time as “flours” and “flour girl” and I couldn’t remember her name now if I tried. But I don’t feel like giving her a phony name and the short time we spent in the same room predates most of the other references to “x girl” and “the girl who x”. Most people don’t really care much about their first name, and I don’t think she did either. We didn’t actually talk about it.
the ghost is on the dry dock
The moment, like everything here, never passes.
wild turkey lane
A spare.
My back was turned when the collision occurred, but I was looking at you, and the way your eyes didn’t move told me what mine missed. You weren’t looking down the lane, you were looking at me, grinning, holding out the large Coke I hadn’t wanted.
In the pocket of my jacket on the seat beside you was an unopened pint. In the bin beneath our scoring table was an empty one.
“My turn,” you said; tipsy, cocky.
I had won the coin toss when we arrived, so you were bowling with my left hand. I handed the cup back to you, frosty acid washing down my throat and into my chest, and picked up the fuchsia ball you’d chosen.
“Watch this,” you whispered, “motherfucker.”
I released the ball as awkwardly as expected, but the instant it touched the gleaming hardwood, I spun around, horrified, unable to watch what I knew I’d just done.
Your eyes went wide.
crash.
You laughed so hard that you squeezed the lid off the cup, and half its contents into your lap.
—
On the beach six hours later, the moon was nearly bright enough to write by. It had been quiet all night. You were sitting on the drier side of your folded jeans. I noticed something and turned – your eyes were already on mine and I barely caught the fleeting, struck flash behind them. Then you smiled, and broke into laughter again.
