We Could Be So Good For Each Other
He gets this look in his eye that makes me think there is construction happening just beyond the glassy sheen; like an impenetrable wall is being erected, one that won't come down with words alone. There was nothing I could say, anyway. How do you argue with facts?
He came into the tomb and laid down next to me.
"I never imagined that I would have to think about leaving again. Putting a backpack on. Taking the mutt. I don't have anywhere to go. I don't even have a savings account." His face looked so old. I hate picking over those wounds because you get a feeling of complete and total helplessness in the pit of your stomach that makes you hate to be alive, makes you hate to have the capacity to love, to feel anything at all. The strong oak breaks and the reed that can bend will survive, but no one mentions what a pestilence it is to be that reed, how you will give your very life for that ability to bend. He is not what he looks like on paper. That's what I discovered.
And I wonder, would it even be a fit? I thought about Erie County and being in the courtroom with him, I thought about how small and scared and incredibly mortal he seemed. I remembered hearing him explain that he hadn't gotten the notice to appear in court because they still hadn't updated his address, I remembered how the judge scoffed. "There is no such thing as a good excuse." I listened to him give the new address on record, and later that day I stood next to him at the clerk's window while he filled out a change of address form. Thank god we got everything wrapped up that day because I checked this morning and the address they have on file for him is still the old one. It was two years ago that he filled out that form.
I looked him in the eyes and I said, "through good times and bad."
Life is choice, and change, and I don't remember ever feeling so bifurcated. He is not the moral twin of Midas but there is no possible way of explaining that without eliciting a placating look and an obvious question. And sometimes, the questions have already got answers. My fingerprints are on the blade that severed my foot. The thing to do now is to learn how to walk.
He came into the tomb and laid down next to me.
"I never imagined that I would have to think about leaving again. Putting a backpack on. Taking the mutt. I don't have anywhere to go. I don't even have a savings account." His face looked so old. I hate picking over those wounds because you get a feeling of complete and total helplessness in the pit of your stomach that makes you hate to be alive, makes you hate to have the capacity to love, to feel anything at all. The strong oak breaks and the reed that can bend will survive, but no one mentions what a pestilence it is to be that reed, how you will give your very life for that ability to bend. He is not what he looks like on paper. That's what I discovered.
And I wonder, would it even be a fit? I thought about Erie County and being in the courtroom with him, I thought about how small and scared and incredibly mortal he seemed. I remembered hearing him explain that he hadn't gotten the notice to appear in court because they still hadn't updated his address, I remembered how the judge scoffed. "There is no such thing as a good excuse." I listened to him give the new address on record, and later that day I stood next to him at the clerk's window while he filled out a change of address form. Thank god we got everything wrapped up that day because I checked this morning and the address they have on file for him is still the old one. It was two years ago that he filled out that form.
I looked him in the eyes and I said, "through good times and bad."
Life is choice, and change, and I don't remember ever feeling so bifurcated. He is not the moral twin of Midas but there is no possible way of explaining that without eliciting a placating look and an obvious question. And sometimes, the questions have already got answers. My fingerprints are on the blade that severed my foot. The thing to do now is to learn how to walk.
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