When it’s not chilly outside but the ringing in our heads continue like chatter
I look forward to walking with him. Our bodies temporarily train tracks; parallel.
I’ve seen us this way. But his pace quickens and I now feel the water moving in my bladder, and we are now further from each other. The man playing his accordion at the Ceiledh at orientation mentioned, it all flows “right, left, in out, only time will tell.”
Then for lunch I heat mushrooms and carrots with onions, garlic, and salt.
Highland smells of smoke and dew and the sound of truck engines. Bike bells. are now drowned in oil and in my shaking hands and I think my ability to love is malt.
Amidst my bouncing and twirling by the stove top, I remind myself that no one can write my dreams- not even Ezra Pound.
Then he’ll appear. Seeking more tobacco disguised in chit-chat. He’ll pull 3 pounds from his pocket.
“I’m skinned” he coughs, “all out.” He faces me and specifies this phrase with a sigh.
He proves his smile to me with a cider bottle. Together we giggle at the foam on the carpet, the fact that we said fuck it. When he asked me my intentions I felt like we had, for the first time, just said “hi.”
But we are young and we are free and lively- like there is no end is what we are told.
When we depart for even two days I think of these greater implications and I begin, again, to feel the cold.