Sink or Swim.

Impending absence makes the heart grow fonder?

If you want me to love you, tell me you are leaving.

Tell me you're going around the world and not coming back.

On Sunday, we sat side by side on the beach. The sun was smiling at
us, the cool breeze was blowing, the hippies were playing guitar, the
gangsters were driving by in caravans of Chrysler 300M's with suicide
doors opened wide, girls walked past us in endless streams wearing
itsy bitsy teeny bikinis. Welcome to the heartland, I mean heaven.

He slept and I wondered how I'd ever be this happy again. Every song I
hear, every place I go will somehow manage to remind me of him. I'll
have to run away because even though he'll be thousands of miles away,
escaping him will be impossible.

I imagined sitting on a porch in the distant future telling my
grandchildren about this far away state called Minnesota and how I
could never go back there because if I did I'd have to realize what it
was that I had lost. There was once this boy, the story would begin
and they wouldn't understand, they'd be too young but maybe one day
when they too realized they lost something they never knew they had
until it was much too late they would have to understand.

As he pushed me against the wall I imagined that he said I love you
and he did say something, but I can't be sure it was that and I kissed
him hard and fast so he wouldn't have the chance to say it again.
Because really, I don't want to believe that. I can't believe that for
six more weeks and then just forget anything ever happened; just
forget that what I felt actually meant something.

The night before we stumbled into the kitchen of my little house and
he sat me on the counter and attempted to remove my clothing. Bad
timing, I told him as various garments were thrown with abandon and
landed on the table, the stove, and the microwave. He said he didn't
care and that he just would like to see me naked. How funny is it that
those words might be the nicest he's ever spoken to me and I think
that is just perfect. That was all I wanted him to say right then.
That is all I ever needed him to say.

Sometime last week I actually called the ex-convict and I actually
walked the half block that separates his house from mine and I rang
the doorbell and then I knocked. I walked in and was greeted by the
familiar face of a familiar bulldog who I think I missed more than I
missed this man. We drove away in a car that I'm sure was not his and
picked up his friend who greeted me by saying how come you still hang
around with him and I laughed a real laugh because I had know idea
what I was doing or why I was doing it. And so the story goes and it's
a long story which I'm much too lazy to tell right now.

Tomorrow is the day of the devil and I half wonder if all the satanic
worshippers will take to the street and have a parade or something or
maybe their version of an easter egg hunt like those Christian people
do. Or maybe all of the characters from Rob Zombies movies will come
out and decapitate us all.