199995

These are my collected Airport Feelings on a Two O'Clock Train.

First, I have kept you bottled up inside. So that we are perfectly clear, this is the you that once was, the me that once was, and the us that once was. An ecosystem of perfection, bundled around some nucleus made up of equal parts sexual attraction, lunacy, and fate.

Second, I am not sure what the men on the this train want from me, except to glare silently with eyes red like mine.

Third, I am sorry that your mother, and my insecurities, have co-conspired to keep me away from you, and myself, for as long as possible.

The things that will fade have done so, and I am left, tightly not-smiling, missing my stop in a Tinkerbell costume because the party ran too late and I drank too much to fill the spaces.

199996

A heart, a time or two. I loved this once, this hearty stream. This time passing, these years worn smooth like pebbles.

All are equal in the eyes of our Lord.

I sat in that old rocking chair, marking each new day with the same old things. Curtains open, sun in, biscuits made with slamming pans.

Life lays low like Johnny Cash. A whiskey-soothed song of a century.

Out of my window, I cannot tell which of my vices has done me worst.

I sing a hymnsong to mark this, my last day staring at green pines, honeysuckle, old porch through smudged glass.