tuscaloosa > personals > missed connections

The Walk Home - Red Drew Avenue m4w

Date: 2010-08-25, 2:59AM CST

This is how I forget: foot in front of the other foot in hopes that gravity will drive the body forward. You, standing. You, standing on a sidewalk that is uneven, a collection of ice cubes at the bottom of a tumbler glass that I drank out of a few minutes ago, the glass that I left half full with brown liquid. The ice has melted. The ice has not melted and you are standing on top of it, your shoes gripping to the solid turning into water at your feet, to create a waterfall. I feint left and you move left: a terrible dance that we have started. You, not in the mood to dance. Me, not in the mood to dance but wanting to escape the punch bowl that I have left, to find a wall that I can lean up against, slide down, my back hitting every ridge of the concrete block before my body hits the floor, legs stretched out in front of me like a dying spider, like a ragged doll that you have propped up against your pillow. I don't mean to talk about pillows, not here, not when I can smell the scent of clean clothes coming through the exhaust pipes of a laundromat, the smell of clean, the smell of home, the smell of the time where I left my favorite stuffed animal in the mud--he soaked in the stench of earth and needed cleaning: first, a round with the spinning canister, then the dry heat of electric: when he returned, his buttons were hot to the touch, his fur dulled. This has nothing to do with you--I left you standing in the middle of the sidewalk, shifting your weight from foot to foot in an attempt to redistribute what is left of what you have left. I return home, silent. The road that has taken me to this place is named after someone who won just enough games as he lost--an even number if we even count numbers, seven up, seven down. The streets that surround this one are named after heroes, men who left their job not on their feet but on the shoulders of the newest edition of how things operate. This is not the street I take home. This is not the street that you stand on, observing the cracks in the concrete, paying no attention to the insects that dart across your path--latitude over longitude. When I get home, I take off my shoes. I take off my shirt, I take off my pants. A string scratches the hair on my legs like an insect, like an ant, like something dying. I paw at it, wrap the string around my wrist and pull until it snaps: this is something I will not forget.

Location: Red Drew Avenue
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PostingID: 1928393859