| I said the best possible thing today. It was about his toe and does not bear repeating. Already, I could feel my skin sizzling, from the sun, mind you, not hormones. At least not all.
There are so many hes I am now self-conscious and dizzy. The tea she sent is plain all right but it's coarsing through my veins and sending me to pee every goddamn five minutes at work. (Shut your mouth. I'm not.) I give myself a long look in the mirror. I am not what you have seen or heard. For one, I don't have new contacts and my eyes behind my glasses are smiling, but tired and the lens has shrunk them to slits.
What he sees when he sees me: It's a very stupid question, which I can't stop asking or believing the answer is Nothing. The mirror reports: Dark short hair growing out, I see and shirk, to a mullet. Cusses like a sailor and giggles like a schoolgirl. He's seen all this all already, I am sure. I am curious about his lenses. I have already had an argument about his eyes.
What I know so far is it's like a kindly rally (in the tennis sense; politics come later). Only no one scores when the rally ceases. I am afraid I dropped the ball for very stupid reasons, like the spooky Cinderella I am. Some reasons are better than others for fleeing, and I've used them all. I often have a bone-chill understanding that This Just Ain't Right; I've ignored it, and heeded it, and either way ended weeping. So it is. This time, the sun was busy shrinking all the long morning shadows, retracting the night; swooning was operative. He will listen, I'm sure, but I am not sure I will tell him or what.
But this is not supposed to be boys; I've written enough. It's supposed to be about thelong embrace of the sun, in which I have been wrapped for days; it is also called 8 bucks an hour to be alone with my thoughts? Yes or icicle with sickle. In this perfect little heat every sentence is out of context hilarious and perfect, fits. Yesterday, one said, "In case you can't tell we are taking the long way" and long way we took until the road was blocked, and that made us laugh so hard the world disappeared. Another one's asking questions, and I know the answers.
In my solitude I think of words from books which are my favorites, words from folks who are my favorites, and take careful notes I will still forget to write down, but I might tell you in a wet little whisper before I flee. The small of my back is sunburnt; it's the part I forgot to block. An insect dipped his stinger in me thrice; brother bees, a wasp, I couldn't tell; all I have are bumps to show. Because I only flinched when I got them, and did not scream as I usually so, I am tempted to take this as evidence of my resolve, my heightening threshold. It isn't, I bet. It's evidence of bees, of whom I have never wanted to be afraid and am not any longer. And bees, I am happy to report, are plenty. | 
