18

a year happens, tide and wind and tide, screen protectors replaced and shattered again. there is no other life, none other than air filled with light smoke and windows cracked open to cool things down, months of trying or preparing to take account of things, to hold what's mine and say, teary eyed, this is who I am: afraid and reaching so as to not fall, going back to the same songs like the seasons, because that's what it is: september again. is it true that all things have an ending? expiration printed in faded ink on a plastic sheet that was thrown away at the start, a moment when there's nothing to say, a call at the wrong time after work, the same traffic on the way home: none other: a curve around a curve, two bodies so close as to forget they're sleeping. we spoke beside the park with all the tiny places, many inlets, corners carved out of dried grass, cinder blocks, sandwich lunches, marmalade, some chairs, and after it all, I drove myself to the sea. I saw the few stars in the city sky. I thought of the fog and being home, how thick it was, how it covered everything.