Import

Some poems spit ashy flames on screens we still pretend are paper –  and tame them within one line and sometimes the words that seem to tame are the ones with blistered tongues. It’s all words but in poems they’re thrown off our shoulders in relief only for us to stare at them in fear. Escaping truth is writing anything else, non-fiction is also anything else – it dulls out truths into details and descriptions for everyone to understand  and dissociate with. It allows the writer to tuck away truths.

I came here wanting to write because something hurts and when I get close to pinpointing what that something is, everything starts to hurt. My infidelity is ongoing, from diary to next and I can’t seem to commit to an incessant outpour of words. I assume blog posting won’t see devotion from me either but for now 1 am will have me tapping away at keys almost lullingly. The air conditioner hums and humidity from my open window challenges the artificial air. They both settle on my skin uncomfortably.

I think of marriage. Well I used to think of marriage and now I am married and don’t think about it at all. It is much like being young and thinking about becoming an adult and once you do become an adult you forget that you are or you just don’t feel like an adult at all. I know I think of who I’m married to, that would be an ongoing thought, an incessant inpour of thoughts to what I do commit to. Far far far away. I talk about 7500 miles like it’s just that a distance, one number associated with one thing. 7500 miles, over my quarter of a decade that I have mostly been alive, has meant many things to me. Right now it means who I’m married to. I’m married to the distance, to static lines, to codes that run through networks and decode themselves onto our indulgent screens.

I’m also married to a man, a beautiful man. A 7500 mile away man. The last time a cracked screen rattled and brought to life a beautiful face, our hearts they hurt and our eyes they blurred and my phone buried itself into ocean blue sheets. The 7500 miles they drowned us a little.

Large soy flat white with an extra shot I’ve talked about before. More commitment from me but I had been away, 7500 miles away. When I returned and the distance mattered once more so did my coffee. I shared my being married and my sweetened my tongue with the beautiful man before sipping bitter. But I felt the bitter before I tasted it. Import.  The words that came before or after fell away and I felt defensive. I am defensive but import? My beautiful man?