dust

There was a power outage at your work today so you were brought home early and I asked you to meet me at the corner cafe. We sat outside in the wavy heat sipping ice coffees out of tall glasses with our straws. The sun blinded me but made a halo around your silhouette - how fitting.

I am melancholic this day and you took my hand and made me walk with you in the twisting hills of our neighborhood. We arrived at a tall hill of dead grass among the chaos of cubic houses, and you led me upwards along a sandy path. I just sunk my head down and watched my feet gather a coating of dust as the rocks pierced my feet through my cheap flip-flops. At the top the wind wrapped warmth around our shoulders and we sat on a high green bench which made our legs dangle back and forth like children. You pinched my leg and pointed at it saying "dangle-dangle". I was about to cry.

We spoke to a stranger about his darling dog, and I pet her the whole time as she endlessly shed her fur, I was fascinated by the tufts of it which were immediately lifted by the wind and carried away and dispersed into nothing. I would like a stranger to wipe away the dusty layer which coats me these days, before I cry and it turns to mud and weighs me down making it impossible to move.

When I visited here as a teenager I rode the train out of the city and cried because it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, the hills coated with cozy houses...I envied the flesh that spent its days there, the eyes that scanned that awesome view every morning they woke. Now, it's a clutter of hideous - soulless pastel houses. No matter where I flee to I will always eventually see the flaws. It's true love when you love despite the flaws, so where does that leave me?