I just wonder how many years I took off my life after Iggy left.

Answer to the burning question...

you had one.

I don't know just where I am going...

Awake much earlier than I have to be...

After a quick trip to pee, hours before I have have to leave, I fall into a dream.

Lost in a cab, not sure why we were together, we had time to catch up.

Up and down Yonge, trying desperately to get further away, we leaned against the doors, talking.

I told you the news. You told me where you'd been.

And I woke.

Lying there I was bombarded

With thoughts of my past, my present, my future, I lay there.

Thoughts on what it is like to leave, to be left and to find.

Heartbreak to euphoria, how do you understand it? The reverse, not much better.

Like a racing car, hurtling down the speedway. And as fast as you go, there is always a crash just around that next bend. All you have to do is blink and you are stopped in your tracks. Concrete wall or no, you are done for. Heartbreak.

But you could run forever, weaving in and out. King of the road, overtaking every single car. Not a care that your heart couldn't laugh off with gusto.

But not racing? Not feeling that rush, failure an option always, but never taking the risk?

Watching from the bleachers as your friends play that game of tag, that race of a lifetime. As each tries their best and inevitably one drives the other into a wall.

Where are you then? Helpless, unprepared, yet totally aware.

Photos of you, taken in places I have never been, at times when I was somewhere else.

Those hurt the most.

How does one assuage the guilt associated with being the only one home when your roommate's cat dies, suddenly?

I don't get many days off so they aren't supposed to be filled with panic, helplessness and mortality.

Memory No. 40

cupboards, in the house; dead of winter

As the days keep turning into night, I listen. Listening for songs and signs. Noises, really.

Little bits of you, hiding.

Hiding in plain view, but sound travels in a way, a simple way, a way I can't see and only hear for a second.

Remember when? Remember when Valentine's was coming, almost here, but coming fast and sure.

You went to the store and bought some stickers. Retro and cool.

Hiding them, being on your mind, you arrived home. Placing them, where I would look.

Small places, dark and sure.

It took me a while, but I found them all.

You hid them well, throughout the house to be stumbled upon.

First in the pocket.
Second on the shelf.
Third and fourth piled up.

Placed together.

Rx: Need a little spooning?