Walking through winter skyways, searching for vanilla coke, which we drank with wild abandon and damn did we feel fine, having finally solved all our problems of the year before. The fireplace in the basement kept everything warm including the burning carpet and burning promises and everything that tends to burn when two friends are in love.
(February)
Who has time to write when you’re busy buying cards and writing novels in them? Happy late birthday, happy late Valentine’s Day, the kalamari at Krave was delicious. There were no signs of whatever was missing before. That could have been the problem. The snow may have started melting but I was too busy staring into the faces of other people to notice it, or my shoelaces untied, unready for the fall.
(March)
There was a whole lot of Learning To Deal to do, dealing with the wet grass underneath the knoll tree and being unable to do much except write some more. And everything was going to be okay until it wasn’t anymore and then there was nothing much to write except “SPRING IS DEAD, SPRING IS DEAD!” and I wrote it so it must have been true.
(April)
Then I saw myself On The Road where I belonged, far away from the rain and all the people I ever reached out to in it, but things like school and life kept me from going too far. Which was a dreadful kind of fate, because after a full month of trying to get things right I saw two angels on the couch and I walked away knowing that was right, because angels find other angels in the rain during silent April showers.
(May)
The turquoise princess of May Day Morning became evermore present in my mind, which was burning golden fire, waking up to a new series of images and daydreams that propelled me forward and onto the rooftops of suburban Woodbury, where the nightlines glowed purple and orange, ready for the year to begin anew, ready for a new senior class, a new kind of concentration and wonder that would have us reeling for the rest of our lives.
(June)
The sun dries up even wildfire. What started out as slow dances while muttering “shit, uhh, shit” turned into slow walks in circles surrounded by apologies, sorry for the stupid, sorry for the silence! and I couldn’t quite spit the blood from my mouth because up was down and down was I, remembering phoenix cries in the May sunset and wondering what it would be like to have a best friend again.
(July)
On the bed of some hotel in Wisconsin Dells, quite disturbed by my lack of desire, which happens to me during the summer, I’ve come to realize—I will never get married during July, I know this now, because fireworks make me bored and the heat makes me feel alone, so I hid from the day and spent my thoughtful hours in the quiet dark, wishing goodnight to the world, without knowing where it really was.
(August)
It was starting to be clear that this was the worst summer in all my history, that it was festering and none of my confessions or concessions were doing me any good, so there came a time to stop being silly, to find the voice to forgive, and the voice to say “it’s time to go, I have class in the morning,” getting up from the basement couch, in a haze of uncertain excitement that will follow me for as long as I have beautiful friends.
(September)
So much growing up to do, but that could always come later! So many people to meet, names to learn and miraculously remember weeks later. And finally, I am part of a group! Finally, I am a senior at this school of Lovecraft & Artistry, and every moment is to be jumped on, rolled over, and pulled up from the warm ground because THIS is where I was and anyone I missed went away! Fingers never moved so fast. They moved as one, but hey, they were still one.
(October)
It started out so brilliant, and I painted every morning orange and gold, with my hands waving free at the folks at the bus stop, before I drove, to home and more! To where nothing brought me down, no news of new love, no memories of old love, no stacks of smoldering applications. That was, until the week of the rain, when I bitterly wrote that you fucking suck and knew that in actuality I was talking to myself, that Halloween had come early, that I was dressing myself in clothes of spring I knew no longer.
(November)
And at last it all came Full Square, with nothing much changed except thicker textbooks and journals where I have scribbled countless odes, villanelles, ballads and song lyrics that have no melody. It got colder even on the first, and I knew this because my feet started to itch: the irony of having cold feet isn’t lost on me. I paid the dear price for being romantic and spent the month breathing into my scarf, fogging up my glasses, treading lightly on black ice.
(December)
Snow Day and Snow Day II, which we waited up for all night, and Rubius dances in his bowl even when I’m asleep, and we know that there are no good goodbyes, and we know that we will all go dancing barefoot in the skies, and when this long, tangled year is finally over, we wheel around to face those we love most, and celebrate having done all we could, forever complicating the intricate, delicate blessing of friendship.
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