Sheep's eyes.

You have to write about this. How will I know what you think about all of this if you don't write about it? I was confounded when he said this of course, because if he didn't know what I thought then he certainly wasn't listening, hadn't heard a single word I whispered in his ear between the gentle kisses I laid along the line of his stubbled jaw, hadn't heard a single word I murmured as we entangled, hadn't heard anything I shouted in competition with the headboard. It's strange to me of everything he has ever said that this is what I remember most, and I don't even know when or where we were, but I remember the soft desperation in his voice, like lights turned so low you wonder how the spark has strength at all to glow. I remember wanting to shield him from that light, to let him sleep, but oh how I needed it to see.

Today I tried to put on something soft, something quiet and melodious like the brook that dances teasingly through his yard, like the glitter in his eyes when you stare long enough to see just beneath their watery surface. I tried to put on something he'd like, so I could think happily on him for a change, think about the streets we wandered, the cabs we dodged, but I put on The Shins instead and suddenly he disappeared.

*****

I always think of you when I listen to The Shins, he told me quietly in the back corner of a smoky bar. It makes me so happy and so sad at the same time. I think that was the last time we talked, or the last time I can remember anyway, but what are these pointless memories worth? It was, gosh, far too late for us by then, and he'd gone and gone and gone again. I used to vaguely wonder if he'd ever come back but I learned ages ago that they never do, maybe they move an inch or two in your direction, or undulate back and forth like an ever changing riverbank, but that river is never the river you swam in before, all appearances to the contrary be damned.

Funny thing is that I don't even think about him when I hear The Shins, but I do think about his words, the kindest and most horrible arrangement of words anyone has ever said to me. I can't remember how long his hair was or what his voice sounded like but I remember his exact words, indelible, as though they were tattooed along the contours of my hipbone. I should have them tattooed across my hip as a matter of fact, because they're the words I need to say to someone else, and without a written script I know more than anything I've ever known that I'll forget what I wanted to say, what I want him to hear when--or if--ever I see him again.




*****

This week on The Collective: We drink the haterade.