the wake

ijustranoutonyouandimnotcomingbackidontcareifyoucryintheshowereverydayforayear

sometimes, i think i must be a heartless bastard for the things i've done. maybe it's my ferocious catholic guilt speaking, but i've been careless with the hearts of good people and left them without looking back and without really considering the affect i may have had on their lives.

of course, when they pop up in front of you at starbucks on a monday night, it's tough not to glance over your shoulder to make sure your eyes aren't playing tricks on you.

- I thought I left you behind a long, long time ago.
- You did.
- What are you doing here, now?
- Did you think I would stay in the past?

and i might have. but things like this keep happening to me.

maybe you can identify with this. maybe you see blind people everywhere you go and you wonder if it means something. maybe you keep hearing a certain song that evokes a very potent memory. maybe people keep asking you the same question: "How are you doing?"

maybe not. but there's a reason that i can't shake the feeling that my past is trying to tell me something. it's because i know that there's something i can learn from this - that i can take with me as i forge ahead in the starbucks queue.

i place my order. she pays for both of us because i've left my wallet in the car. i want everything to be casual, fun: reveling in the good times and pining for those days again if only for as long as my drink stays hot. it isn't like that though.

she's different than i remember; and i can say that honestly because i wasn't expecting anything at all, let alone a conversation. i listen intently. i'm trying to find the tracks the person i once knew all those years ago somewhere in the corners of her quiet voice. i can't find them in the forest of her words anywhere. there it is, in her laugh, but it's like an echo and i don't believe in it enough to follow it any further through the trees.

i tell her my secrets anyway - the ones that everybody knows - and she tells me some of hers.

hers.

hers are about me. they aren't recent secrets and i think i'm not the first one to hear them, either. she tells them like a tune that she hums when she isn't paying attention to anything but the feeling of hot water on her skin in the morning while the notes flow past her ankles and disappear into the drain.