Photo by X.A. Medina (http://lepoet.tumblr.com/)
—
He sat at the new coffee shop next to the old tattoo parlor. He sipped his coffee and three Chinese entered separately but all forgot to close the door behind them, both ways, for a total of six times. He read the Bolaño book his roommate had given him. After every poem he looked across the park for the old girl. Whose interest in he was slowly losing. This depressed him for without her he could barely write. It was with her that he thought of the line “I write to fuck and I fuck to write.” He liked that line although he was unsure of when he would ever use it. He didn’t see her across the park, and it was getting late, he would have to go to work soon. He walked to the subway, let the first train pass, his excuse was it was too crowded. Everyone faced forward and he faced backward, straining his neck to see her come through the turnstile. The next train came and he entered. He gave the turnstile one last look as the doors slid closed and she walked down the steps. Her hair changed, but her effect the same.
—
He kicked the door open with his boot and slipped past the closing gap.
She pinched his elbow. Look Hitler was an Aries too, like you. He shrugged and thought, fuck Hitler and fuck horoscopes.
—
You like cats or dogs, she asked. I like cats, the same way I like my women, I answered. And how’s that? She asked again. Small moments of intense uninterrupted attention followed by long pockets of indifference. So should I leave now? She asked propping her head on her pillow. Not yet, but soon.
—
26, he thought, was a funny time to start taking bumps in the bathrooms of dives with strange women. But then when was the right time, the time when it was the most serious and least desperate. He would never know for his life was his, and theirs were theirs. In the end that’s all he had, himself and the name that went with it.
—
Most accuse my stories of being autobiographical when in fact they are not. The truth lies in the emotion and feelings I try and project through the words, for there is reality in them, however the stories are made up. This story however truly did happen, not too long ago. Whether it happened to me, or to you, or to someone you know, or someone you don’t, I will never tell and you will never know:
A guy loved a girl, but she did not love him back. She loved another man, who did not love anyone but himself.
-
westonauburn posted this
