The last two times I ran away, my sprints ended in your arms. At Tampa International and an abandoned Greyhound terminal in Ocala. Not quite St. Pete or even New Port Richey, but close enough for my geographic explanations to others. Your nickname in jail then, not surprisingly, was Florida. It was easier than Happy Kill and, of course, no one there could possibly make the reference.
I love the fact that we have decades of history from which to draw an esoteric language. I love the fact that you call me by my name only when you’re angry. (Even then you never quite finish the third syllable.) With you, it is (and always has been) just, “K.” I love the fact that I know these facts. It’s reassuring. How well we know each other, how easily we always seem to fall into each other.
You were little more than a girl when I met you–just five years older than your oldest child is now. We were both kids then, playing adult in our newly adult bodies. Traipsing along the waterfront in Waikiki, ruling Ke’eaumoku and Kalakaua, Kuhio and Ena Road. The Hideaway’s still there. So is Studio 54 (but with a different name). The Wave–the background set to so many of our triumphs and tragedies–is many years gone, however. Just a memory to those like you that made the scene, and those like me who rode your coattails to the front of the line and upstairs as a VIP.
You and I have lived at least four lives together, and many more separated. And now, after all this time we find ourselves together again. More precisely, together apart.
How is it possible that in January 1998 I slammed a door in your face then hung up on you two days later when you called to ask me for $300? The end was always bad for us. Of course, I never forgot you. What I still can’t explain is that you never forgot me. Everything I know of love–good and bad–I learned at your feet. But what was I for you?
What a pain in the ass I must have been, so naïve and pathetically new to everything. What a pain in the ass I must be now, never quite having grown up. And for the life of me, I don’t know what to do. Tell me, where do we go now? Are we to gamble the status quo of our lives that the fifth time will be a charm? Are you willing to sacrifice everything against the struggle for a work of consequence?
Tell me, where do we go?
The Wave revisited (again)
The last two times I ran away, my sprints ended in your arms. At Tampa International and an abandoned Greyhound terminal in Ocala. Not quite St. Pete or even New Port Richey, but close enough for my geographic explanations to others. Your nickname in jail then, not surprisingly, was Florida. It was easier than Happy Kill and, of course, no one there could possibly make the reference.
I love the fact that we have decades of history from which to draw an esoteric language. I love the fact that you call me by my name only when you’re angry. (Even then you never quite finish the third syllable.) With you, it is (and always has been) just, “K.” I love the fact that I know these facts. It’s reassuring. How well we know each other, how easily we always seem to fall into each other.
You were little more than a girl when I met you–just five years older than your oldest child is now. We were both kids then, playing adult in our newly adult bodies. Traipsing along the waterfront in Waikiki, ruling Ke’eaumoku and Kalakaua, Kuhio and Ena Road. The Hideaway’s still there. So is Studio 54 (but with a different name). The Wave–the background set to so many of our triumphs and tragedies–is many years gone, however. Just a memory to those like you that made the scene, and those like me who rode your coattails to the front of the line and upstairs as a VIP.
You and I have lived at least four lives together, and many more separated. And now, after all this time we find ourselves together again. More precisely, together apart.
How is it possible that in January 1998 I slammed a door in your face then hung up on you two days later when you called to ask me for $300? The end was always bad for us. Of course, I never forgot you. What I still can’t explain is that you never forgot me. Everything I know of love–good and bad–I learned at your feet. But what was I for you?
What a pain in the ass I must have been, so naïve and pathetically new to everything. What a pain in the ass I must be now, never quite having grown up. And for the life of me, I don’t know what to do. Tell me, where do we go now? Are we to gamble the status quo of our lives that the fifth time will be a charm? Are you willing to sacrifice everything against the struggle for a work of consequence?
Tell me, where do we go?