Missed Connections at the Convention

Curls and dark eyes, intense. You look down when you talk. Now I want to go to Florence where Michelangelo drew on the walls and to Sicily (the eccentric city, the dark city, the scarred city). I think I just like that you said, “It’s okay, I’m not going to judge, I’m an artist too” when I paused before telling you what I write about.

What I like about you is that I know how you see the world and I can play by those rules. Your eyes are very green and there’s a bit of a cleft on the tip of your nose; somehow it suits you.

I felt so bad for you. I really really hope everything works out for you and you turn into a super-successful tycoon or something.

You were so cute and serious. I hope my friend didn’t scare you too much. You don’t seem like a Patrick at all.

And you! I am a little in love with you. Everything from how you gesticulate to how soft your lips are from smiling to how you think; it’s a neat bundle. The first time I saw you I thought hockey player; I saw you getting off the bus, I saw your shaggy hair pressed flat by helmet, I saw you turning to a teammate panting, talking plays. It makes me so happy when my random mindthoughts are right. Junior B in Finland, that’s where the scars on your chin are from.

You made me feel lonely.

Wandering Aengus

I went for a walk in the snow the other day. Sometimes I almost think I like getting dressed up for things more than actually doing them – almost. But it was good to be wrapped up in my black greatcoat (Peter Peter you were so sweet so smart so good. Peter Peter I loved you so but it was Edmund I couldn’t stop thinking of), toque pulled low over my ears and my gloves so sweetly incongruously pink. 

There are pictures. Not very good ones, I was worried about my camera getting too wet. Mostly there was dancing in empty alleys, slipping and sliding and twirling. Singing, too - but quietly, because that’s harder to keep secret. Throwing palmfuls of snow into the air and spinning under the induced blizzard and telling the quiet frozen air how it shook me all night long. 

And then watching my footprints as I headed home. Someone with heavy sensible boots had trod the same road but my prints wove in and out of the broken path, small narrow feet like a piper’s.  

Winter may be the cruelest season, but it is the best one.