‘I loved her a great deal. I don’t think she ever knew.’ He tells you this even though I was the one who had asked the question. But i’m always the one that asks the questions, it’s a force habit, cutting you off. You never really get a chance to get a word in, do you? I guess it doesn’t really bother you the way it doesn’t bother me that he’s looking at you when he answers my questions. Wait, there he goes again. He’s about to say something else. He’s looking at you as he puts out the cigarette. His mouth looks all tired, lines in every direction around it, like ripples in a pool.
‘She meant the world to me and i’d make jokes,’ and he looks at your fingers, do they remind him of hers’ He looks back up at your eyes, ‘What else could I do? What would you have done if you were me?’
I grab your arm because I don’t want you to answer that. It’s not for you to answer. He thinks you’re her, you’re not, remember that. I know it’s unfair but we’re, i’m the one asking the questions here. We came here to get answers. He’s left us with some many blanks to fill in, wouldn’t even give us the letters. Remember that. He burned them all up to keep us in suspense.
He lights another cigarette, and for a moment he looks like he could have been my father. I wouldn’t know but just the way he holds his head at a tilt to light it, like he was examining the flame, or the way that the tiny flame catches his face. That sudden, barest of shadows around the edges of it. You almost understand why she fell in love in with him, don’t you?
But then he coughs all out of proportion and something green and black tries to make it’s way to the corner of his mouth. He catches it before we can see it for what it is. They say he’s dying. You know how that goes though.
‘I didn’t have an easy life. I barely had a life at all. Always hiding in the corners as it were, hated the sun.’ He looks to the corner where the teapot is. It’s empty because we wouldn’t have any. He took it out and made such a big fuss about it, using the step ladder to get to it above the stove, but we said no anyway no matter how pathetic it looked. It was too hot for tea. Even if he put ice in it, it would have melt, just doesn’t taste the same then. No matter how polite I know you can be. We just sat down and tried not to make a big deal out of it. Just get some answers and get going. Since we were around he might as well answer us.
‘Until her, then i’d always look at it. That’s why i’m practically blind you see?’ He smiles as he rubs the lit end of the cigarette in the ashtray, pushing old twisted butts against the glass. ‘I only wanted to look at her all night, they way she’d hold her arm under her chin.’

of course there was a difference
between how you had done it
and how you felt
about it, it was only a matter of time
when it would present itself
as a security issue
a farce of circumstances
your eyes pinned on the face
of whom there was no other
no reconciliation from what you had
and this face
in the end
you could only feel something
pressed to the back of your neck
a dull thing, a pipe
that was warm from use
and you had prayed
that this time it would be different
but how could you have known
that all this time
you were fighting
something you could never see
with your eyes.

“It’s simple, you got it?”
“We go in and just take her..”
“Yeah, yeah, but we got the guns out before we go in-”
“Like gangbusters..”
“Yeah, yeah, and then? What do we do then?”
“I let you do all the talking.”
“Good…good.”
“And I look for the girl-”
“No, no, no, YOU don’t ‘look for the girl’. THEY look for the girl..”
“Oh, because you told them to, that’s why you’re talking.”
“Riiight….okay, okay. Well then, you ready?”
“That’s the house right?”
“No! It’s the next one on the left.”
“So I ring the bell and then just bust in..”
“Right, right.”
“Okay, I think I got it..”
“Wait!”
“What?”
“Don’t forget the gun..”
“Oh..okay. Thanks…”
“Well? What are you waiting for..?”
“Aren’t you coming too?”
“Yeah, yeah, I gotta park the car first..”
“Why are you going to park the car?”
“I can’t leave running it in the middle of the street, right? Someone might steal it..”
“Oh…”
“So go on, I’ll be just a sec. You won’t even miss me. By the time you hit that door, I’ll already have them getting the girl. Now go.”
“Okay…Wait!”
“WHAT?”
“Don’t lock the keys in. I mean, it always happens to me…”
“No prob. Thanks.”

A: I have no idea how we got started on this.
B: it?s easy, the president?s been shot and we have to do something about it
A: like what the fuck are we supposed to do?
B: well, catch the killer of course.
A: no, that?s just fucking ridiculous, how do you suppose we do that?
B: we look in the phone book for ?Recently wanted people.? I?m sure he?d be the top of the list.
A: wait a minute, why do you suppose it?s a ?he? and not a ?she??
B: well, it?s neither he or she, it?s just an idea.
A: what?
B: the dead president. wouldn?t it be nice?
A: if it made a difference to us folk out here on the street, maybe.
B: sure it would, we need a good assassination, I mean look at Israel, they just got one. we need to stir things up in this country.
A: oh god, are you going to on social reforms again?
B: no, I don?t think so. I left my dissertation at home.
A: you actually started one?
B: well my marriage was boring me silly so I had to find something to rub my testicles on.
A: you?re just like Jerry it?s unreal.
B: I AM Jerry.
A: oh. that?s right. have you considered this?
B: now that?s a ridiculous question, I haven?t got any shoes on. how could you ask me a question like that?

And all I heard was her laughing. I looked at the floor. I kept walking down the hallway and all I heard was her laughing even though it had nothing to do with me. It just went on like it did.

I will never take away the spoken word that one finally had the right to put down on a bathroom stall.

We will meet somewhere in the middle and it won’t have to be in the middle of this or in-between you and I but somewhere in the middle.

I wonder if we’ll be in the middle of something worth being said.

All you left behind was poetry. I hardly knew you but I did in the words that took you so long to form.

To know that you haunted me and I can’t remember the titles to the poems leaves me for what could’ve been. What did I know of you but the center of what you’ve been wanting for someone to accept and I am there too. To know that only the pages will know this in a somewhat less than you would’ve and if words were spoken before written after the act then maybe there would’ve been no written words.

I noticed her look at me, not a glance, a look, and “oh”, because I remember how good she looked weeks ago but she hadn’t looked at me then.

I guess I’m being spiteful by not looking at this beautiful girl that’s looking at me, but wouldn’t look at me then when I first though she was worth looking at.

But all in all, it’s nice to be looked at.

Rather is an interesting word because it doesn?t exist. It?s an either/or, closer to something of which but unlike, inasmuch there is distance in the like a or of, so where exactly is it or should that be what?
A gun was held
to his head
Always to the head even though I never meant to kill him but at that moment I did want to. My regret is solely in hindsight.
?Don?t,? he said that one time and that was what triggered it. That was it. It had always been a quiet thing, an eye thing, holding the gun to his head. How often, gun was in hand and not a flinch. Not stone faced, not tough, not fearless. How could you be any of those things if nothing changed? If he was talking I?d pull it out, straight on, inches from his lips. Not a pause in rhythm, not even between words.
What a strange thing for a man who could feel everything, the slightest noise and change of wind. He knew what you felt with each moment if moments can be counted as less than seconds and he?d know if you were staring at him from across a room before you?d even stare.
He said, ?Don?t?
What a thing to say when it wasn?t on my mind but suddenly was with ?Don?t? and I pulled the trigger wanting to because he made me into a threat from something that was at first nothing and the gun kicked and it was never a game anymore.
If we were sitting differently, the sun on him instead of me, would he have seen the wind change?
Black dress
blond hair
ample breasts
a smile that has smiled too many times when she thought it would be a little more but the softness is lost to something a little less than the colors that a street would have in walking arm in arm to get lost and not have any wrinkles.
Hurried, hurried half step like there?s a stick up your ass or is it a rash? Take your eyes off the floor, the sidewalk, the street. Just because you don?t look at me doesn?t mean I won?t hesitate in slapping your walkman away and knocking you to the ground. I?ll scream ?BITCH? and laugh my head off because of how ridiculous you look there flapping witless like a wing broken. I?ll break you for real to look at me.
The sensation comes to me and how beautiful you are. I think of coffee and your stripe ans kin, like glaze and
I find people much more appealing when they?re dead.
?It?s not quite finished.? she said, unveiling her painting, a self portrait.
?Really?? I had said and looked at her and the image and even though it was pretty standard, I couldn?t see how the image was unfinished. Unless, of course, she meant it as in she was unfinished too. That made sense because sometimes she spoke like that, like a sculpture waiting for the chisel to finally stop. To be presented.
There many pages in such a little book. I guess I?ll have to say lots of little things.