M.

It’s sleeping with security, knowing it could leave in the height of the night and never ever call again but at least you had it once and can tell the tale. It’s what we’ve always done—attack and release, accept and dismiss, and miss out. It’s what’s real. It’s living a Raymond Carver story, actual and stark and close and gritty, but not like sand or dirt, though, like teeth. It’s completely different but sometimes so much the same that it becomes impossible to do anything but wonder what types we are, watching it worsen, longing to let go, and yearning to get it back. It’s the comfort of having something to have and the fear of its dissolution. It’s wondering how much to say and how much is too much and what of the too much is all wrong and not for the saying anyway. Was it ever? Were we? Am I? You? It’s talking around because it’s easier to talk through mouth pieces in parts than it is to come out with a whole mouth full and here see I’ve just gone and done it too. And that’s trying, that’s folly, that’s death, and that’s laughter.