In the Cooling

May 18th 2008

A brief flash

- a green dot tells me that you're still here

The silence that takes share of our friendship is not at all like

the comfortable silences that I sought to find.

In the cooling, we exchange words in Arial text.

Titled "Hey", that go on for days

without answering

In the cooling we are both left sitting in our own livingrooms on Saturday nights

in the presence of a glowing screen.

And in my confusion and in the midst of insecurity

I confess to know what this all means

June 2nd 2008

In the cooling, you appear out of nowhere,

here and there every couple of days.

And I teeter back and forth

from visibility to invisibility in the square frame

of a software prompt.

And when we talk, I tell you about how

I'm ok, and how I'm better

with noisy innuendos of desperate pauses.

In the cooling we will play our parts

Composed and stout until

one of us falls apart.

The other forced to listen.

And when we speak to each other next,

the other takes his turn to rumble,

and crumble and mumble,

"I'm down."

In the cooling I am confused.

In the cooling I fantasize that we can make this work,

that its really as simple

and clear

and easy

and romantic

like how it exists in my mind.

In the cooling I imagine what you're going through,

like what I'm going through.

But also,

All the men that you have kissed and have been kissed by

All the the hands that have held yours

All the fingers that have combed your hair and have sifted through the wrinkles of your clothes

In the cooling I am a mess.

June 3rd 2008

And in the wake of another morning

when the first discernable image I compile is you

I get up slowly.

Like yesterday,

I turn to my left

searching for a shift on my mattress that matches your body weight

And what I don't find are your eyes and your morning smell

And what I find instead is a sense that another morning has made my memory of you

a little more dull than yesterdays

And I am afraid that soon I will completely forget the sharp smell of your cologne.

In the cooling I balance the dissonant chatter of the lunchroom at my work

and the loud invading images of you from when we bumped into each other in front of the cinema on Sunday.

I am glad that we both erupted in awkward silence

and that we talked in medium length afterwards

still inside the frames of my laptop and your desktop

Im not quite ready for all of your friendship yet.