Ben McKeown

Come
beside me fly a moment
North, up, away from moments
stuck, forth, we’re only listening to
rules that whisper and grin,
flicker and then recede.
Be a breaking force against the
course followed, straightening for
the souls swallowed, distilled, in
stillness perpetual, inevitably
still uninspired.
Be apparent, live alive
or lie and die -
a corpse with blood and breath.
Come and with me
move, exist persistent,
restraint-free
You, me, your coffee, our dreams.

“It sure isn’t the same not having you to cry with,” she said in a text message.

It was around 1:00 AM on a Wednesday night.  I was in Boone, North Carolina, she in Washington D.C.  I assumed she was lying on a bed in a hotel somewhere near the Capitol, but it was equally possible that she was at a bar with her father and sister, or perhaps standing outside a restaurant on a cold D.C. street.  My body tightened when I read it.  Suddenly, and with absolutely no forewarning, I felt a deep sense of sympathy, perhaps the way a mother feels when her daughter wakes her after a nightmare.  I wanted to be there for her now.

I wanted to hold her.  And wipe away her tears and reassure her like I know only I can.  I wanted to be there.  “I’m so sorry darling.  How can I help you?” I responded.

She was sad.  Nothing bad, she said.  Just sad.  I felt infinitely too far away.  I couldn’t help.

“Love you,” she said.
I responded.  “Love you too.  I miss you.”
“Miss you too.” she said.

I had nothing else.  If I were close, I would have put my hand on her arm and squeezed gently, perhaps stroked her forehead with the palm of my hand, just held her.

I wasn’t close.

——

I sent her a text an hour later.  “Asleep?”

She responded affirmatively by saying nothing.  I closed my eyes and hoped for her.

As I was leaving I told her, “I really am happy that we ended up next to each other for a while, tonight and at this point in everything…”  I leaned down towards her, heavy, it seemed, like my whole body was a sponge that had been soaking up a dense and watery affection for these last six months.  I kissed her forehead gently.  I loved her, I was sure.

She lay still, slowly breathing, by all measurable means asleep.  I left quietly.

——–

Later, I wondered if I should’ve stayed.  On my phone, I typed out a text.  “Can I come back?  I won’t keep you awake.  I wish I hadn’t come home.”  I didn’t send it right away.  I couldn’t decide whether I should.

I stared.  Into my computer screen.  Into my future, hazy, bright, somewhat noisy, but a bit more alluring than ever before.  My mind weighed the alternatives.  All at once, a battle raged within my brain between what I wanted, what she wanted, what I needed, what she needed, and what would satisfy us both.  None was much stronger than another.  My thumb fixed itself atop the “send” button on my phone, its pressure increasing, decreasing, increasing; the tiniest intensification in pressure would easily forward my message.  I waited.  My thumb grew sore.  Then in an instant, the pressure, by no deciding of my own, perhaps simply as a result of my expanding anxiety, became too heavy for the button’s resistance.  The message sent.

I set the phone down on my desk.  No response.  I hadn’t considered this scenario, actually.  She was asleep.  The text, as the case most often is, did not wake her up.

She’d see it in the morning, I realized.  And with that, I relegated my night to a more dispassionate level and retired from the bother of too much thought.