so long, and thanks for the fish

Candice left for her trip around the world, for two years.  Damm if I'm not excited for her, but also unsurprisingly a little bit miffed and sad and weird at the same time for myself.  Left behind, yes.. that's the only way for it, left behind to go and strike on my own something spectacular.

That's going to be the 4th person that's leaving town this summer.  It's been a year for departures.

The corridor stretches long. Beyond memories and possibilities, going where I don't know and stopping where we'll find out only someday.

"Don't cry. Don't cry.  All right, cry if you want to. Goddammit, it's exciting! It's your show and everyone's waiting for the music to start!"

"I'll cry if I wanna. Let me cry."

"All right.  I hear ya. See ya around. Be safe.  We'll be all right, ok?  I'll catch up.  We'll be all right.  Don't cry, dear, don't cry."

#5 on the speed dial goes nowhere now.  Only emotions left, swirling in the empty space – it's dangerous, those feelings.  Feelings outlined by years of together, the every day, the simple acts of being together, colored by things unsaid undone and almost.  Almost regret, but only almost, cause the mournful way home is fringed by thoughts that it's better this way, of the inescapable freedom that promises something better.  It has to be better, cause we said so.

She leaves and the acid weight of nothing jumps and buckles and expands in my throat and I can't do anything but smile, hoping that by smiling I'm gonna be ok about it.  Words of our songs sneak up on me and belts out unformed thoughts -- my brain only has room for emotions now.  See the skyline passing, and how it fades in and out from the glaring light.

Her voice is saved on the phone, if only to sedate the roaring (yearnings?) emptiness that darkens the summer sun and cools my sweat, like I've forgotten something important.  I've misplaced my laughter, cause she has gone off with the promise to come back with something better.

Words will come again.  And the sun falls only to come back again. 

It's like discovering air when you're a fish; like driving for days only to find that you've gone to the wrong place entirely.

She walks through the gates and beyond my life.  Beyond my careful expectations.  Beyond our city.

Sunday mornings and Saturday afternoons, sleeping next to Belvedere Castle and walking along the Boat Basin, dim sum and steak frites, middle rows of movie theaters and the middle of subway platforms – fat dogs sightings basketball games reality shows pastry stores West Village East Village hookah nights jazz bars summer stages autumn shopping arms and hands and fingers and toes, locked now and never the same, they go on and on just without us, only her and I now, and it'll be ok – again.

Oh, it'll be different, but that's a good thing.  Cause we said so.

I come back to an empty room, of photos smiling from their frames, of us in some strange time, before we grew up.