Mistake hearkens amelioration, as if life's curtain can be drawn again. Mistake invites nostalgia and drags me back, in the warmth of this sunset night, in the reflection of those kitten heels and a girl's perfume at my neck.
It is funny that it is her and her laughter, here in a city that was not that of our friendship, that brings it back. A ghost that is ours and ours alone--save our Hungarian friend with her beautiful music and mountainous laugh. It is funny that I miss in a way succumbed to by my small fairy friend at once and without warning. And it is harder to realize that hate gives way to this wash of longing, of lilting towards a line already lived aloud. That is rife in remembering the bitter shocks of red; the maple syrup drawn to, within; the most beautiful of rage.
What touches is that familiar scent and sound; these Siamese twins still tender renderings of the wooden seats curved to our opposite of frames; those waffles so fat with life that they bit back; that fire of beginning; that fire of the carpets, of the woods.
Perhaps it is because I could look above and beyond a neighborhood I have outloved. And with that so many memories that bite back, which laid down in the shadow of such tragedy, only now, in this flowery air of my friend, begin to set themselves free. They are released, in me, in these breaths, these words from which I cannot step aside; they are unearthed with such honor and honesty that even in my exhaustion I cannot sleep. Even in this attempt I cannot put this into words. The relief lies somewhere much deeper than resting or writing or realizing. Although I know an attempt at relief is as futile as my movement towards the cardboard past.
