2014-03-05

I never meant to end up in bed with you, swaying in the afternoon light on the 
wire-suspended loft. You had cut off all your hair and dyed what was left a reddish 
color. I missed that feeling, running my hand down your side, over the mole on 
the back of your hip. Do you even know it's there? So many things we will never 
know. You wanted me to help you set up an appointment with a psychologist, but I 
was evasive, reluctant to do some else's taxes. What do they do anyway but talk, 
like we are now? I got up and walked over to my painting bench and the loft 
wobbled uncomfortably. It traced out an endless spiral superposition of 
lissajous figures on the floor. Not really a loft, but I had taken to sleeping 
on it. What passed for sleep these days at least, between failing the tests I 
had expected to be easy. "Arrow cell?" is that even a word in english? 
"Rhampotheca?" what?

Picked up a dried wisp of something, some kind of grass from the park, and 
dipped it in blue ink. They make the most unexpected flower patterns if you just 
push straight at the paper, perfect drawings of lotus and horsetail. Let the 
brush do the work. Schwoop there's another, and another. I felt immortal, 
invincible with the paintbrush. Spin a tree root soaked in dye and a whole world 
appears. Push a wire dipped in paint and it's a computer program, who are you to 
say it's not. I should dye and nickel dip those baby monkey skulls with the 
deformed teeth. A fitting tribute.

You were still there on the loft, wrapped in blankets and watching me paint, or 
whatever it was. Such a hot mess. Hey remember that time we went walking towards 
downtown, through all the gang war memorial parks with the little plastic 
castles? There was a hill you could stand on and see all the way to the lake. I 
think it used to be an onramp to a freeway that's no longer there. Man, those 
were the days.