from under your eyelashes

cause sometimes when

I think –

always coming back to

close up

a glimpse

like

this.

Do You Remember Passion?

“Do You Remember Passion?”

by alex rivas

Pushing open the door of the café on Gray Street, I really don’t know why I’ve come here; well I mean, I do know why but it’s easier to contemplate the rafters. They’re familiar, you know, but not too much - I can throw my head back in that corner chair in the far end of the room and get lost in the veins, the bumps and bruises of the wood.

I ordered another King Crimson tea this time, but honestly I don’t know if I can finish it – not because it tastes funny or anything, it’s just harder to drink it all without someone else borrowing the cup once in a while. So I’ll just leave it there I guess.

Took a look around, it makes me kinda sad – seems they’ve closed off our – I mean, the patio. I think it’s probably because the bench back there finally gave out, I guess Formica really isn’t as unbreakable as some people think – really you shouldn’t take that sort of thing for granted. And past that patio, I don’t even need to look outside to see, to remember everything that’s there – things that don’t change, or go away, that are truly concrete. There everything remains, stays still while the world panics through it.

On the wall there, “Do You Remember Passion?” – the favourite graffiti of the kids who haunt those backalleys, some other person begs the question.

do you remember,

do you remember?

I remember, that stain living right on the bricks, I took one of your senior pictures there, the words that just jump out to say – well, I don’t know what right they have to ask, anyway.

It’s not something that needs prompting, the thoughts that were already in my head. I could count the cracks in the sidewalk from where I am to that wall from memory, feeling two sets of footsteps in my mind but I can only see my own two feet, placing themselves one after the other; stumbling and remembering how you always said I was clumsy but honestly it was just hard to walk with someone’s hand around your waist pulling you this way and that. It’s not any easier, though,

walking alone.

27 cracks – that’s how many there are between the parking lot and here, our no my favourite little streetway – I guess it’s a short walk, and I get so distracted anyway.

I check to see nobody’s looking, as usual – for different reasons I guess but I mean I’m glad all the same that no one’s around. I trace the broken lines on the wall there lightly - as lightly as I might trace the lines on someone’s face.

It’s funny, I can see everything, right there – the memories, the photographs I took superimposed just the same on the chipping whitewash. Also funny, because the wall behind that whitewash wasn’t even white to begin with – it’s – too easy to see so much.

Also funny; you know, people stare just as much at one person wandering around alone as two?

But it’s still so very

different. Oh, and there –

somebody took your place in the parking lot.

para la noche

it's almost like

the night has a taste all its

own;

like a smooth warm wine

or

melted chocolate

it moves around the corners of your mind-

seeps into the seems, behind the

screens you put up to keep in reason, the

light

of

day

like black gold; the night

turns the colors rich, dark, so vital

vibrant

alive and

content. like a lover who

you know - you know you'll meet them

in the morning, you know they reside -

and see them once every day is done.

the night -

to rest at your side.

and still

I tremble

because they say

it's inevitable

projections (I couldn't resist.)

first time I heard your voice

"no surprises"

there I was, quilted blanket covering -

what

is

happening

I was surprised.

I had no idea -

And you know - every time

I'll only fall

deeper.

maybe it's the music;

maybe it's just

the simple resonance of

sound.

funny how words

can contain worlds within

their little black confines -

61 words

a lifetime

a memory,

vivid as summertime -

between two lines

just like this

a feeling.

only

didn't know

that I felt this okay -

that anyone

could make all those past - to borrow words,

"losses long left behind" -

go away

and I didn't know

that it wouldn't feel wrong -

to look in such a way

at such a person

with such a feeling

again.

"Naturally"

in the purest sense of the word.