5/10

Her name is Kelly and she’s a bartender at Wally’s Seafood on the waterfront. She bikes to work most days, a short ride, as she lives just down the street in one of the oldest houses on the block.  Bright pink rhododendrons, which she is quite proud of, adorn the small garden in her front yard.

She points them out to me from the rear patio at the restaurant over looking the bay.

“Here, put my sunglasses on; it’ll help you see them.”  She carefully slips the sunglasses that were balanced on her head around my ears and onto the bridge of my nose.  The graze of her cold fingers sends shivers down my sweaty back.

I look towards her house, into the sun.  The burst of vibrant flora against the otherwise bland stretch of green grass and white worn houses is refreshing.  I feign a deep interest, complimenting and admiring, just to keep her glasses on me a little longer.  But just as casually as she placed them on, she removes them, and moves on to the next guest.  Pointing to her front yard.  And placing her glasses on others’ faces.

10/23

There's this moment when we're on the mountain together.  When the reflection of sunshine on snow makes my eyes ache.  When I look over at the dark wisps of hair extending from beneath her blue beanie, playing on the pale skin of her long neck.  When she searches through her backpack for her lens case and takes care in attaching the zoom to the camera on her iPhone, trying to frame the waterfall before us just right.

I turn my gaze toward my feet and say, "I suppose I just always want to know." Then I pause and look up at her, "but I guess I can't."

And she turns to me.  Nods.  Then turns her attention toward the camera again.  Takes the shot.

And I feel like I've never known less.

10/22

I stand beneath the awning outside of work for a few minutes.  The rain is relentless.  A thick curtain pouring from the fabric above me.

I didn't bring a coat, so I stand in my grey hoodie.  Waiting for the inevitable soaking.  It's then that I notice something sticking out from the door handle of my car.  A piece of white jutting from the black of the handle.

As I move forward and enter the down pour, I imagine an advertisement of some kind awaiting me.  Something about a new restaurant in town.  A coupon for groceries.  Maybe a traffic ticket of sorts.  I pull my hood against the wind.

When I reach my car, I realize it's none of those things though.  And my pulse rises with excitement.  I let my hood go.  Let the rain beat on my forehead.

It's from the girl.  I know it.

The paper was torn from a small notebook, folded into a bow.  The blue ink bleeding through each crease.  I carefully pull it from the handle and get in.

The paper tears immediately as I try to untie the bow.  I grunt in frustration and blast the heat.  Put the note on a vent.  Watch it intently, thinking about pots of boiling water.  My impatience gets the better of me though, and before I know it I'm fiddling again.  Flicking and picking at each fold and groove.  Cursing my thick fingers for not being more sensitive.  Careful.  Dexterous.

But it's worth it when I finally peel the piece fully open and reveal the running words.  Let them penetrate my shelled heart.  Let them take over.  And it's then that I know I'm not as awful as I think am.  Only then that I know there's still beauty and hope and love out there.  Only then that I know it all really is ok.

And I sit like that for some time.  With the note on my lap.  And a warmth in my chest that I could get used to.

10/21

We're walking in the woods.  There's three of us and it won't stop raining.  The two girls are up ahead of me.  I can hear remnants of their conversations through the pitter-patter of rain drops on my drawn hood.  Something about photography.  Or trips to Japan.  Or fading friendships.

And though I'd love to be closer to the girl with black hair and pale skin.  The one with the spell binding gaze and silky smooth voice that makes it so hard to follow the sense of her sentences.  The one I haven't stopped thinking about for months, but I don't try to keep up or chime in.  I even slow my pace.  Take a moment or two to stop and look up at the forest.  At the sagging, soaked leaves and moss hanging from sprawling branches.  Let the distance grow between us.

It's not until we reach a quick moving stream that we all come together again.  The water is only ankle high, but the black haired girl did not bring waterproof footwear.  So, when the brunette easily steps through the flowing stream and looks back at us from the other side, I see an opportunity.  A moment to prove my worth.  My value.  Maybe make myself noticed.

I begin picking up larger rocks and placing them on the bed of the stream in a line of sorts.  Shore to shore.  A bridge.

I return to the black haired girl with a smile.  With the water rushing over my boots, seeping in through newly discovered cracks and soaking my wool socks, I smile at her.  But her attention is on the current.  On planning her voyage across.  

So I extend my arm.  Still smiling.  "You can hold my hand," I say, "I'll walk you across."

But my words are hardly out before she's hopped passed me, submerging a foot completely as one of the stones rolls over.  She doesn't pause at all.

Then they're both walking on ahead.  Farther into the forest.  Out of view.  And I'm left in the stream.  With one arm still reaching out for something and a frown that won't go away.

10/20

Weighed down.  Was it the rain?  The grey skies?  The low barometric air pressure?  Or was it that mood disorder that has gone undiagnosed for years?

Hard to tell.

The morning starts well enough though.  I'm in high spirits. I don't mind it so much when I'm standing behind the cash register at work and someone approaches to ask about the taco menu displayed above my head.  It doesn't tighten me up the way it has lately.  It doesn't cause me to go rigid, crippled with apprehension.  That doesn't happen. And the interaction appears to end without catastrophe.  

It's not until afternoon.  Sometime afternoon that the weight settles in.  When it starts bearing down on the corners of my smile.  When it weaves its way through my spine and curls it into a slouched, distorted mess.  When it drops the anchor and takes takes me with it.  

I go under.

And it's not so bad, down here on the seabed.  A little darker.  A little more quiet.  Doesn't seem like too bad of an idea to burrow into some sand and stay for a while.  Loosen up this spine.  Address this frown.  Return to the surface in due time.

Yes, that sounds good.

9/10

The stool squeaks like it always does as he pulls it from beneath the bar.  He drops down on it.  Heavy.  Worn.

The bartender wanders over and asks the man if he’ll have the same as always.  “The usual?” He asks.

And the man nods, barely lifting his chin from his sunken chest.  He nods and places his elbows on the bar.  Slouches forward.

The bartender sets the scotch and soda down on a coaster and slides the glass under the man’s nose.  “You need a straw tonight?”

This snaps the man back to present.  This brings his gaze up to see the bartender’s playful smirk.  “No, I do not need a straw,” the man says as he picks the drink up from the bar and delivers a generous gulp to his stomach in defiance.  

But the bartender has already turned when the man clunks his glass back down.  He scans the other patrons’ faces to see if he had an audience, but no one is looking at him.  No one cares.

He resettles his chin on his chest and sighs heavily.  “Suppose there’s not much left to do,” he mutters.  Then takes out an avocado.  And makes some guacamole.

3/8

She lays on an inflatable pool bed, drifting through the canals that cut through the cement of this surreal city.  With her arms and face submerged, she floats, snorkeling.  Searching for deposits or remnants of this or that.  Searching because that's the reason the team sent her out today.  Cull and analyze information.  

So there she floats.  Down one of the intersecting waterways.  And I'm just watching her.  As she slowly pokes around beneath the surface.  As she casually raises her head to drain water that leaked into her mask.  As she lays there so unassumingly.  

Then I'm in the water too.  I'm coasting over to her raft and when I make contact, there's a brief moment of fear that I've disturbed her research.  Compromised her project.  Maybe I shouldn't have intruded.

But she greets me with a smile and a laugh.  Pulls her dirty blonde hair from her face.  Sinks me with those royal blues.

She slides her legs off, providing room for me on the raft, and I grab onto the opposite side.  Our feet drift underneath, coming together in short, almost rhythmic patterns.  Joining, then parting.

I ask how her day is going and she begins to explain the greater aspects of the search, identification and successful gathering of certain organisms or entities, but I must shift my weight at some point because as she's speaking the raft folds in the middle and our heads meet.  A swift bonk.  

I'm embarrassed but she's laughing again, and as I'm trying to asses the damage, apologizing and scanning her forehead for bruising, I realize our lips are closer than they've ever been.  

My body tingles.  Heart races.  Time slows to focus on me.  

And she notices.  She feels the pause as she glances at me.  The split that occurred from the moment we were having to the one I've created with my desire for her.  And though she holds me suspended there for an eternity, poised on my elbows with the grey haze of the day settling down around us, she leans forward to join me.  To lend her lips to me.

And the rush consumes me.  The release of tension and inundation of ecstasy is almost too much.  But I bear it.  I bear it to float with her for a little longer.