the obscure object

one thing i never told you. hey remember that time i thought i was dying at that concert and i went and sat in the last bathroom stall on the closed toilet seat with my face buried in my hands? you kept calling me until i came out. there's a picture of you. it's not even in focus. in it you're standing near the stage, one hand covering an ear, the other holding a cell phone. you don't know where i am and there is a look in your blurry blue eyes. a puffiness, a tilt to your head. it's the evidence i have, the goddamned photographic proof, that you cared. i don't know how long it lasted or how much you disguised to look like a lie. remember how i finally got your message and you found me outside the bathroom? you took my hand and led me outside into the throng of smokers on the concrete back porch. led me to the steps and we sat down in the cool, fragrant night air. looking out over that back-alley, your body pressed up against mine. you took care of me, kid. i never loved you more.


and maybe love is too strong a word, considering the way things turned out. i don't know, i can only speak for the moment. i realized later that, taking into assumption all the things i still tell myself today, that i didn't really need you in my life. that you weren't the kind of girl i needed anyway. it was shocking to me then, as it is today. looking back, it's something for me to be able to take control of myself like that, to convince myself that what's best may not be what i really want. i mean, i'm still the same person. i still believe in the elusive, unlikely someday. it's how i get by. but thanks, i guess, for that.

saffron, i've figured a couple things out. i have believed for years that i was in love with you. it's true, i care a lot more about you than most other people. i have this reflex to wish us into a relationship, to see us in the future together somehow. it's been like that for a long time. but the more we talk, if i look at it... the messages you leave on my voicemail, the pictures she sends me... hearing how you function with your guys. i don't really think it would work for us. i can't say that for certain because i don't really know you in person, of course. we may just be perfect for each other. it just doesn't seem that way. and i can't stand thinking about it, almost, because it so contrasts what i want to believe, what i'm used to. but hey, maybe it's part of figuring myself out. and don't worry, we are more than friends, no matter what. and i will always love you. hakuna matata.


the girl from my dream. i don't know her. and that's taken a fair amount of reckoning too. that girl, the one i assumed was perfect. she's made up of images of people i've never met and characters in books i've read. i dont know her, have never met her, and may never. she's none of the girls i have loved. i'm not one to let go easily and i still care for more than a couple girls more than i really should. but she isn't any of them. then what am i doing? it was a big deal for me to suddenly find that i could know what was best for me and turn down someone because they weren't what i really wanted. but if who i really want lives only in my dream, why do i care so much for all of those who don't fit the mold? i guess it's how i operate. maybe it will just come down to my storied someday when we will meet, face-to-face. and if i'm luckier than i deserve, maybe i will be the boy she has dreamed about but never found, too.


Don't get me wrong, dear
In general I'm doing quite fine

It's just when it's summer in the city
and you are so long gone from the city I start to miss you, baby, sometimes...