Another photo for the Writing To A Photograph project. Photo provided by my friend Jade in Japan. My writing to this photograph below.

I want coffee, well, no, I want clarity. The coffee can wait. I turn the key in the deadbolt so hard that I briefly think it is going to snap off. Wouldn’t that be a relief? Never go back inside that white cube of an apartment, locked out forever. I punch the lobby button and three floors down step out of that little rattletrap of an elevator, the fluorescent bulb flickering ever so slightly, making a faint buzzing sound. I despise that sound—and in my inner ears I can hear a squeak as my jaws clench even tighter. The front door is partially frozen closed, which I’m not expecting. Instead of opening with a push of my arm, it sticks. My head hits the glass. I spit and rub the ridge over my right eye, a comma-shaped smudge left on the door. Outside. Into the snow. The snowflakes are swirling around, eddying around the building. They aren’t soft like a tissue, they’re hard and coming down fast, biting into my lips like small razor blades. I pull up my scarf, snarling underneath.

Her warm breasts are pressing into me below my shoulder blades, her arm around my torso, tucked between my ribs and the mattress. She kisses the base of my neck. I had to bring it up. I couldn’t let the goddamn thing go, could I? She retracts her arm and turns her head down into the pillow, her hair brushing across my back. I drift off to sleep and don’t even feel her get out of the bed; don’t even hear the door click shut.

My scarf blows down around my neck and I get hit with a face full of razor blades. I leave it down, squinting my eyes to slits. A tiny, sharp snowflake makes it between my eyelashes. It hits me square in the eye. My head jerks. No use wiping it out of my eye, it’s already melted, running down my cheek, a tear I can’t seem to cry on my own. I’m stumbling a bit as I can’t really see—can’t see the pain I inflict, can’t see the suffering I cause. The snow is getting deeper, I pull up my scarf and squint again.

Another photo for the Writing To A Photograph project. Photo provided by my friend Jade in Japan. My writing to this photograph below.

I’m walking down alleyway after alleyway, but I can’t seem to find her door. Left, then right, then another goddamn left. Nothing. Do I go back to the bar? I turn around and there: the gas main on the corner painted yellow, the dumpster to the right, down a few paces. Recognition—like an old memory pulled suddenly from a dark recess. A few steps and one more left; I breathe out and calm myself.

I’ll knock on her door and she’ll open up and invite me in for tea. There is a lot you can learn just by sitting over a cup of tea—not talking—with someone. Then maybe I’ll understand why she left. Why she left me in that bar toying with my drink.

I turn the corner and there isn’t a door, there’s a goddamned vending machine. I stand in front of it, uncomprehending.

The harsh light from the bulb over the door to my right is shining on me—translucent, eggshell cracks riddling my shadow on the wall to the left. The bulb is moving in the breeze, my shadow swaying faintly. I’m fragile and I’m slipping.

I turn and make my way back past the dumpster and gas main. Tomorrow night, yeah tomorrow night—bar, gas main, dumpster. I will find that door.

Another photo for the Writing To A Photograph project. Photo provided by my friend Jade in Japan. My writing to this photograph below.

A shattered TV screen, an image still playing across the shards. I’m awakening but the dream is still painted on my mind’s eye. I’m desperately trying to keep the fragments in a coherent whole. She’s walking down an alleyway in a seedy part of town, I’m desperate to catch her—I must tell her something—but my legs move as if underwater. Anxiety at not getting any closer to her, anger at my recalcitrant legs. I try to call out, but choke.

My consciousness hasn’t yet burned off all the sleep, but I’m losing the dream. It’s pulling away—the harder I try to hold on, the more awake I am and the less I have ahold of it.

I’m awake and the dream is already clouded over—details smear and pieces evaporate. Irretrievable. I swing my legs out of bed and think Now what?

Another photo for the Writing To A Photograph project. Photo provided by my friend Jade in Japan. My writing to this photograph below.

We used to go to this little theater—no more the 30 seats—but a few blocks from our apartment. We always sat in the same seats, rear of the theater, stage left. Her with her little snacks valiantly trying to open them quietly, me with a bottle of beer, snuck in in my coat.

They showed smaller budget movies, stuff that the cineplexes would pan, and an odd mix of theater. But usually we saw art flicks which afterwards we would have a vigorous discussion about their merits, or lack thereof.

There was a marionette show, which I found tedious, but she enjoyed immensely. She could sense my boredom and her hand slipped down between my legs and held me warmly. That was all it took, nothing more. We even saw an X-rated movie once—me faintly interested but her eyes clenched shut almost the entire time.

Now I’m sitting here alone, the seat next to me empty. My seat seems less comfortable, the temperature isn’t quite right, the lighting is off—I’m blinking a lot in discomfort, shifting in my seat. A verse from the Conquerer Worm by that sage Edgar Allan Poe pushes into my mind:

Lo! ’t is a gala night

   Within the lonesome latter years!   

An angel throng, bewinged, bedight

   In veils, and drowned in tears,   

Sit in a theatre, to see

   A play of hopes and fears,

While the orchestra breathes fitfully   

   The music of the spheres.

 I sigh.