A Lotta Light Everywhere

The Night I Got Excited On My Walk That You Don’t Care

from Facebook from Tanner Petrie, to me.

Cuz I don’t care that you don’t care anymore.

I got high on a gummy. One third of a gummy. On my night walk that night, I was running down a hill, and I started laughing.

I realized —

I already processed this in real time.

With alcohol and chips.

This = letting you go.

No need to write about it anymore.

So you won’t see me posting about

how sad I am

about you.

I’m over you.

As in today birthday.

Yesterday, too.

PART TWO

Because of this,

I’m not gonna publish what I wrote two weeks ago.

Although, maybe I will. In case someone wants to see it.

Here it is.

Two Trees

Image by author

I saw two trees tonight. They arrested me.

I was on a walk-jog. It was dusk, and I was almost home. I had somewhere to be — I was rushing, and my head was not “there.”

Then suddenly, I saw “us.”

It arrested me. I stood still, staring up.

Two pines against a grey-blue sky. We were standing side-by-side on the edge of the alley.

I was the more attractive of the two — knotty and bare. Missing a few branches, demonstrating vigor for life. You, on the other hand, were tall and fleshed out. Full of bushy boughs. Contained. I had a branch — my arm — reaching in your direction, along with the general curve of my spine — towards you.

You stood straight.

As if you could not be bothered.

This depiction in nature — so swift and unexpected, — gave me immediate recognition of our state.

Joy and sadness bubbled up.

I could see it. How unmoved you were.

I saw the confusion of my heart depicted in a way that was palatable, and I wept.

Last summer when we were having our tryst — a reunion triggered by tragedy — I was reaching for clarity. One hot evening in bed, with the sweetness of what we had built still swirling in the air, I declared that you were one of my two favorite people in the world.

The other, Frankie.

I don’t know what you thought. You didn’t say anything.

You let the words fall like popcorn to the ground.

I had truly meant it.

But I no longer do.

The love I gave in giving you that compliment— a compliment neither received nor dismissed,

is like a star in the sky.

It shines, but not for you.