17

all the books I never finished: the difficulty of things, wadding a little deeper and not looking back, not knowing how, anymore, to let in what’s familiar until it’s too late: two years of negotiating, giving, receiving ice cream fed pork chops, wagyu and now a whole head of bluefin, eyes drooping in against the heat, meat cut off and put into a soup for dinner: the times when things aligned: a shared ingestion of pleasure: of food and drink and weed and then disappearance, the distance found somehow in the space between the living room and the kitchen, even though they’re one shared room, separated by an island, and what of that: the problems I make for myself to solve, a moment’s relief on my unmade bed and the clarity of someone else telling it like it is: he talks at you and never asks any questions: having nothing to say, having to make anew, having been reminded: I’ve moved in your direction so many times, so many afternoons of cheese making something silly okay, I’m thinking now of where my bookshelf might go, and how it’d look there: somewhere else