nablopomo

nablopomo

Enumeratio

I live by a law of diminishing returns, where I misspell your name in my memory and confuse surreptitious dinners among strangers with some droll routine. I love the alarm, the anticipation of it, the reaching for the erstwhile body, now warmth, the smell of the coffee in the machine, the wrenching of the pipes as the shower starts, the curtain cleft of the eastern window enough to fill the room with the anticipation of noon. It’s barely 6, the room is dark.

I come across some lost days in an old journal, burrs like in abandoned shoes, painful but no use throwing your fists through the drywall. Parental attention is like radar in these memories, and you can slide underneath, undetected, since it’s an old system that only registers outbursts. Not a perfect memory, except that I have filtered for its imperfections. I like the questions, I like the prodding, I like how the crying at expected moments causes her to scribble into her notepad, the pavlovian reinforcement of training your very own psychologist.

I’m sitting in a classroom and am reading a note. Her curiosity piqued because of some odd bit of scientific trivia I spouted unrelated to the question. Funny, I had always thought it was my silence that drew her into my world, but it was an odd turn of phrase that keyed her attention; I imagine I’ve left a body-length scratch along the chrome, and perhaps it’s retribution she seeks. Those caresses with vengeful, ulterior motives the absolute, goddamned sweetest! Ha! Nothing better than being in on the fucking joke, ready to turn on the sorrow and watch her pull out the notepad, scribble, so self-satisfied. I love it. I motherfucking live for it.