my mouth opens when i look at the sky as if fulfilling an evolutionary purpose. because i’m only half-full, formerly full, and this is the next thing i see that i want.

i feel close to someone when i walk past them, not because we're about to touch (we're not) but because our lives are intersecting and in the moment we cross the same line to go different ways i anticipate receiving some ancient message their body was made to reverberate.

a middle-aged son helps his old mom down the sidewalk. she uses a cart. he's not so much helping her as he is standing just ahead of her, walking backwards and smiling like this is still something new. and an excuse to wear those small shorts. i wave to him and he waves back. often, i mouth "hi" without saying it. as we pass, i wave at the woman in acknowledgement. she doesn't see it, or pretends not to, and i've done what i was supposed to do.

you appear at the opposite end of the crosswalk. i wait until it's quiet to hit the button so that you'll hear it. i hit it a pleasant three times. for three seconds you stand recognizing me before pivoting to cross the other way. we remind me of an elementary school math problem, something about the shape I'd have to walk to get to you. "sorry" i could scream into all four corners of the intersection, especially yours. i'd scream it right into the middle so that no passerby would know you were owed this. for your sake. i'd get to be crazy and you'd get to see it. you’d no longer have to imagine how i looked in my stories. as much as you wanted me, you were never crazy, which rendered any reasonable affection obsolete.

you told me someone died in the courtyard of our building before i moved in. he swallowed a bunch of meth as the cops closed in on him. a son who lived with his father in the unit above you. bereaved, the father moved out shortly after. "did that make you think of your son?" i asked. "actually, i thought more of my father," you said. "it took me a while to feel like a dad."

you say your son doesn't wanna hang out with you, reminding me that i shouldn't wanna hang out with you. you were supposed to have the kid this weekend and here i am. often, i do not want to be like the people who say we're alike. "i think we might be alike in that we smother what we love," you say, having no clue what i smother. i've only come and gone. you like me too much when we're near; i like you too much when we're far. you live just outside my window: i win.

your disposition makes me wonder if you have food in your fridge. this whole thing reminds me of TV where you never see the characters eat or sleep yet they survive as if your watching them were sustenance enough. i was never hungry in your apartment. once, you said I was beautiful in this way reserved for parents and children that i don't even want to repeat because it was so nice and horrible. "okay dad dad dad dad dad," i said, and you hated me more in that moment than you did when i closed the door behind me.

you're still turned away at the light. to whom was the last apology you made? the son and mother on the sidewalk were in such a way it seemed they'd never had to apologize to anyone, and better yet, never had to be apologized to. they were still a ways from our scene. it's called the hypotenuse - the long side of the right triangle I'd have to walk if we were to converge again.

you cross first, and away. i walk around the neighborhood a little longer listening to daniel johnston's "some things last a long time" condemning what lasted three weeks and never again. ~