quick_and_insane_thoughts past sitting here, alone and in the dark with the hockey game on in the background (home team's up 3-2), the drink's been flowing smoothly and free (not quite sober). i think of your words from years long past, faded to etched memory, and i read your words of a few hours ago, wishing i could be the one who's there for you again, even though my time is long past. i write simple, sweet truths, i hope they don't seem crass. you're wonderful and funny and cute. you deserve better than you seem to have been getting (though clearly better does not mean me). i hope you get some happiness, some sleep, some beauty, and more important some more timely love than that corner of my soul i can give you. i'd be there, if it was appropriate, if it was physically possible (big fucking continent) to give you a hug, a kiss on the cheek, and a few soft, kind truthful words in your ear. be well, i miss you still, but i wish you the best out there in your new western home. 080320 ... past somebody_more_like_you 080320 ... past crisp air, gentle snow flakes, just enough laughter and smiles to keep the conversation going through the pauses. i think she might actually be seeing someone, but i'm happy my friend keeps inviting the two of us out together. 081123 ... past the taste of cookies and salmon and oranges and soup washed down with white mingle in my mouth. rich tastes, warm tastes. i'm sure my face is red, but it's smiling nonetheless. maybe i should have walked her the last two blocks home, instead of watching her cross under the bridge as the gentle snow fell, calling, smiling, 'see you soon.' but soon does mean soon, and i'm sure it will be by the end of the week. then, maybe, she won't walk me home, but i her. 081123 ... past we landed just before midnight last night and drove out to the hotel. i finally got to bed just before two, local time, which my body felt was about four. i know my mind might not be working best, but i knew that it would move this way, and that i'd be moved this way. i think if we hadn't both cried at the time it might be easier to ignore it now, and if we had gone our own ways, instead of cobbling together a warm friendship that plays on the same chords and tunes that brought us together at first, and is only distant because we physically are (see: big fucking continent). after work, back at the hotel, i tried to nap. i failed, dug up your number, and put on some music that you'd probably love, but that we had markedly never spent hours sitting and talking and being together with, and gave the number a ring. it didn't work, so i double checked, wrote it down, and tried again. it didn't work. exhaustion hit me, and i closed the curtains and lights, snuggling into the too big bed. trying to embrace the fatigue that plagued my body and riddled my soul. instead my mind danced, playing back memories in the chords of these songs that we've never shared. calmly my imaginings drifted to hypotheticals, playing on conversations from just after, and from the times since. from the closeness we just can't drop, that i don't want to let go of. filled with smiles that we've shared so recently, but also with the tears that we shared a few short years ago, on a cold, wet, windy night. even now, as the album ends, the wind blows outside, a train winds past in the distance, and the dark of the room mixes with the comforting shades of blather_red. voices from past conversations, snippets of might have beens and might bes float and fall. and here i'm left, writing under the title of a long dead poet, typing whispers that can only be forgotten in that they've yet to be read. 081201 ... past the number worked later, enough to get a message out, and to get a call in return. ... you kicked me under the table and grinned. 'i know this game,' i thought, thought back to different cities and different girls, with different smiles. i stole some of your dessert instead of playing your game, and later tried my best not to hug you as you leaned into me to try and catch a glimpse of the street signs ahead (we're not lost, you said, they city's a grid). i caught you up on home, of the people you left behind, of engagements and relationships (you asked me of mine, 'nope, none', and you responded that you had 'none worth mentioning' and smiled softly yet confidently--you've told me that before, but i refuse to dig into what it may mean), of music and movies, and of politics and posturing. ... we walked around a bit, out in the cold, crisp air. winter followed me here. as we paused before your train you leaned in, i thought you went to grab my hand and turned mine in, in turn. an awkward brush, a quick, tight, warm, remembrance-filled hug, a promise to talk and go out when we're again in the same city, and you were off to catch the train, and i turned and went back outside, to wander in this strange city, catch a cab, and return to the hotel, a little lost, a little happy, a little sad, and mostly ready just to move on with my life and my loves. (but to hold you, and the ideas and emotions you summon, close, nonetheless. love is hard to abandon, especially when growing part follows parallel paths, and the meetings between leave lingering traces that match so well with memory.) 081202 what's it to you? who go blather from