Photo by Christopher Jug George

Family Drive

We went over my Dad’s place because his car was dead. He needed to go to the supermarket. He sat in the front seat next to mom. I could see their breath but there wasn’t much because they were quiet.  Dad did say it was twenty below zero as we drove through the city. I noticed the Christmas decorations had disappeared from the light posts. I couldn’t stop smiling during this little family journey.

Enter, Delete, Return

You wore a yellow silk blouse on that first night back. You were typing on what looked like a robot’s head. I could see your cheek bones reflected in the green screen of the computer. You said, “read what I wrote.” I bent over your shoulder, inhaling your flowery perfume.

Photo by Christopher Jug George

We Are Not Simply This

Nothing. No. Oh. It’s nothing. “We are simply this.” It can’t be.

The eyes opened up to the world like a vision from without. Outside of you. The whispers in the wind. The locked images flickering among us. There was a time there was no Moon. Then the Moon was made of cheese. Now the Earth and Moon were both created in synestia, a new word that has a red line under it as I type.

Funhouse

Walking in and out of it there, you know, the many its of us. Stumbling or graceful. That silly apartment. The glow of the TV, static and garbled. Your laugh and ice cubes cascading. Our sad faces sometimes in the reflection of the TV. 

It Never Leaves You, and That’s OK

He never got better. I left that version of myself in his rubble and became a damaged version of him.