Sunday Evening

The resounding silence of us,

hanging up.

After we have spent the last six hours

floating through all of eternity,

waving “Hello, there!” to pterodactyls and

the Appalachians and

hammerheads and

the Empire State Building and

robots and

teleportation devices

we are still experiencing

the sun and the moon

three hours apart.

What stretches longer?
The distance of miles or the distance of hours?

For us, it may be miles:

The warmth of your palm pressed against my face

is the span between a small ant

and its mate on the other side of a 

basketball court.

For us, it may be hours:

Your laughter jostling mine on a park bench

is a half-empty coffee mug

left on the kitchen counter

from two mornings before.

Whether it is miles, or hours,

I do not know,

but I do know the feeling

of climbing toward

the moment we meet again

five days from now

in an over-polished airport terminal

amid the buzzing of overhead P.A. systems and

men waving goodbye to the ones they love and

women waving goodbye to the ones they love

we will be two Pacific salmon,

swimming to the upper reaches of river,

only to give, and give, and give,

and one day — some day,

die.

Things That Are Important

1. Laughter
2. Hands
3. Roads
4. Learning
5. Warmth
6. Cold
7. Fire
8. Grief
9. Words
10. Words
11. Words
12. Words
13. Words
14. Words
15. Laughter.

Writing with you feels like pressing my hand against a window, you pressing back from the other side of the pane, and the glass between us suddenly dissolving into thin air — our palms kissing warmly, exactly as they should.

Cell Phone Lifespans

We throw around the word "dying" so often these days. I wonder what life would be like if these situations were actual, literal instances of death:

[Beep] My phone is dying. (Do cell phones go to heaven?)
[I'm hungry] I'm dying.
[Laughing] I'm dying!

*Shudder.*

Caffeine Withdrawals

One out of five posts on this blog are about coffee.

I feel like hundreds of tiny, sniveling woodland creatures with tacks on their shoes are trying to Riverdance on my brain.

Sharing Food

In many ways, we share our food as we share our lives. That first meal together, neatly cutting things into halves and swapping gracefully across plates: half my burger for half of yours; my hopes and fears for your greatest insecurities. We traded big, without a second thought.

As we have grown together, we have learned the rhythms of each other's chewing and the exchanges have become smaller, less formal: the unconscious reach of my fork snagging a bite of your macaroni, the natural movement of your hand stealing one of my chips; a story of your mom for a story of my uncle, one embarrassing moment for one proud one. There is no need to cut our meals neatly into halves; the swap has become so seamless I hardly notice the end of the meal sometimes, as it always inevitably stretches into wine, or gum, or cigarettes.

We're framed differently each time, depending on how crowded the place is — the only ones in the entire restaurant, or crammed at a communal table for six; our voices dwindling to whispers exchanged in a corner booth, or roaring to laughter at a table with friends.

Each time I am enchanted by the new flavors and tastes dancing on my tongue, and the way new memories with you sit in my heart for a long while afterward. Despite the delight of it all, our meals are paired perfectly with longing, as I venture to a place of new menus and specials, where I will eventually order a meal too large or too boring for just one person, where the rest of the food will sit by itself, perhaps too rich or too salty or too by itself for its own good. Hmm...

It is a beautiful thing, to be always craving and be always full.