This hasn’t always been my face. Years ago, those creases didn’t hide cancer grease, they were instrumental to smiles. But that was years ago.

Now the lines on my face are like the lines on a rose long ago dried. Each crease just a miracle about to break. Now the lines on my face no longer carry my emotions- they carry the scars of a tomorrow and a today.

What do you do when all you see is death in the mirror? Outside of breaking the mirror, of course. Which I’ve done. Long ago. Or at least I meant to.

But I didn’t. Because, cancer or no, I hoped to see myself each day in the mirror. I wanted to know I lived, I wanted to move side to side; to try to outpace my reflection and fail. I wanted to stare blankly at myself each time I brushed my teeth and wonder if I was staring at another dimension. I wanted to look from an angle and be surprised the mirror didn’t simply reflect what was in front of it. I wanted to live.

Because the moment you outpace yourself, the moment your refelction dances away, you really die.

You remember the highs of laughter, the lows of groans, like an impromptu played by a well known composer.

You try to remember the piece- you try to make whole the perfume.You look at the woman walking past you, who you do not know, and try to superimpose your memories of the perfume onto her. But of course that doesn’t work. The perfume wasn’t meant for you; and you weren’t meant for her.

So you walk on- the weather is much more mild than you expected. You brought an umbrella, but you now realize you didn’t need to. You’re just another silly human being carrying an umbrella with not a cloud in sight.

You didn’t used to carry umbrellas. You didn’t used to mind the rain. But now you seem to carry umbrellas and mind everything.

And that’s when you see it- a bird landing, perfectly, on a tree branch.

The branch shouldn’t be able to support the birds’ weight. In fact, it doesn’t. If you don’t trust your eyes. But the rules of gravity have no bearing on the world you know to be true. In the world you know to be true, the bird rests wonderfully on the tree, a perfect example of nature propping each being to some sort of higher purpose.

You light a cigratte and try to get the perfume out of your memory, but it’s no use.

What would you prefer, a bad story often or the cream of the crop, every blue moon?

Don’t answer. There is no proper answer. From the start, it was a question that would only serve to prop up my ego for a couple more days. And there’s no cream of the crop on blue moons, as any good farmer knows.

So, instead of a story, let’s pretend we’re sitting next to each other, crops growing underneath the moon, which is above our feet on a porch.

“I met Martha on my way down to Lake Charles, Louisiana. She was sitting in a diner in Porter, right north of Houston.”

“Why were you going to Lake Charles? Following a Lucinda Williams song?”

“Does it have anything to do with Martha?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then listen.”

“I walked into the diner- her hair was black, but it didn’t look that way. It looked brown, and there wasn’t even that much light on her. But her eyes had all the empathy anyone could ever want. There were lines next to her eyes, of course, as all empathetic eyes have, but I knew, with just one look, that she was love itself.”

“So why are you so down?”

“I left the diner.”

Spring in New York is heavy with compromise- winter coats vs. jackets, frowns vs. smiles, valentine chocolates vs. genuine shrugs.

When Brian walked out of the subway he had none of these things on his mind. He had just devoured a serving of Pad Tai on the train and opened the fortune cookie. It had simply said, “Love will find you around the block.” He had tried to exhale the fumes of desperation. Instead he let out dry coughs.

Brian walked around the police horses next to the subway exit. Missed the warm smile he received while almost tripping in a quasi-run to get around the corner. Once there he stood. Waiting. And waiting.

Finally, when the music in his head began to fade, when the piano began to play long notes instead of vibrant, sharp, ones; he rested his back onto the concrete. Maybe good fortune did only happen to others he reasoned. Maybe the rain was acidic; maybe not only luck was missing- but reason as well. These things started to make sense. Made perfect sense. Until the woman with the ignored smile approached and said hi and rendered them irrelevant.

She’s standing next to me, I can hear her soft breathing. But I don’t say anything. I’m waiting for her to speak to me. I’m wearing a two piece suit, she’s wearing a dress, black like a funeral, but in a cut that betrays love. Finally, she speaks.

“Did you know I was here?” She looks at me when she speaks.

“I smelled your perfume.” My eyes are trained on a single light, at the top of a single building.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“You’re always here.” I’m looking straight into her eyes. There’s makeup around them, but they seem more real then ever.

I see the tears build. I want to kiss each one of her eyes. I want to hold her in my embrace, tell her that love is the four letter word to cure all of our maladies. But I don’t say anything.

I brush my hand down the top of the back of her dress, let it rest on the small of her back. I’m touching spaghetti straps that are behind her when I rest my hands on her hips, on her sides.

We kiss, silently.

He thinks to ask her if she loves him. He thinks to ask her if she’ll be back soon. He doesn’t say anything.

He closes his eyes and remembers the previous night. The party and all the people to meet. And he remembers her. Running into her must have been a million to one chance. But she entered in the loft apartment, perfect and clichéd. She wore a bright blue dress, the kind that sucked all the light out of the room and radiated it right back out.

There was dancing on the balcony. There was holding on the balcony. There were hints of kisses on the balcony. There was her hair on his hands, pulling his eyes towards her. There was the hint of love in between them.

Later, when the party thinned out, there was the question of rides home. They were talking to Rick, the host.

“You can always stay, Mary Ann.”

“Oh, thanks Rick, but Mark offered me a ride home.” He had done no such thing.

“Are you OK to drive Mark?” Rick was looking at Mary Ann.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re welcome to stay, you know that, Mary Ann.”

“I appreciate it Rick, but I just need to sleep in my bed, you know?”

Mark says, quietly, “will you be back soon?” as Mary Ann steps outside the door.

I’m taken aback. I sit on the hotel bed, springs trying to bounce me off a bit too much.

I think back to a boy and girl who loved each other a whole lot, and their walk to the symphony. She was a cello player, trying to culture the boy, like bacteria in a petri dish. He had no idea what he had to learn but was just glad to have the chance to follow the girl to the concert.

They were standing outside, rain dripping all around them, rain matting the girl’s hair. The girl tried to light a cigarette, rain drenched the cigarette.

“You really shouldn’t smoke.” He said, as he led her to the awning and lit the cigarette.

“I know.” She ashed her smoke.

“Then why do you?” He looked into her eyes.

“It’s just something to do, you know?” Her eyes were pleading.

“Something to forget we won’t see each other soon?”

She smiled.

“Give me one of those,” the boy said.

He put a lonely cigarette in his mouth and lit it.

“It tastes like your lips.”

The girl grabbed the smoke from the boy’s lips and said, “Kiss me instead.”

He did, earnestly.

Life is all around us,
lucky cigarettes fired,
but destiny is a coin toss,
And flicks just leave us tired.

Sometimes I’m lonely,
Sometimes I rhyme,
breaking the meter of lovely,
to find some space in time.

I’ve been born so many times,
striving to find the eternal life,
that now each and every mine,
is cleared right through of grime.

We advance through each life so slowly,
learning to love each other,
which is the only holy,
thing we can do without a bother.

At the end of each life,
only the rhythm remains,
singing in the strife,
that each loving memory sustains.

That beat eternal,
that emanates from us all,
is the only fraternal,
version of seconal.

We eat and greet,
live lives that are enviable to most,
but each time we try to meet
love it vanishes like a ghost.

Perhaps we should evade love,
leave it stranded at the lamp,
where it fit us in its feather dove,
and left us in rain alone and damp.

Perhaps we should take a train,
that old romantic image,
and leave love’s terrain,
in a sort of homage.

But love is always there,
waiting to smile upon us,
say it never left us to glare,
at the lights, it just wanted us to gush.

So we return, pilgrims to love,
asking in turn, when tickets to experience it,
are redeemed?

There’s a woman with me. Isn’t there always a woman? This is shaping itself into a normal story, albeit one with the fourth wall broken down. We find ourselves at a party. The woman and I are recently broken up. I didn’t want to attend, but the woman pulled me here. And I’m not really one to say no, I’m not really one to have a backbone.

So I’m standing around at this party, and my hair is kissing my shoulders, and the woman is talking to a man in the northern california way which she knows dear and well. And I can’t blame her, really. What did I ever offer her? That’s then I realize I have little to offer at all.

She comes up to me, puts her hands on my chest, and says,

“I’m so glad you came!”

“I’m not.”

“Why?”

“Am I supposed to be here?”

“Of course you are silly!”

“Why?”

She looks past me but doesn’t respond.

She looks good and long at me, brushes my shirt with her hand, and returns to the dance floor to find him. She’s dancing, cheek to cheek as they say. I know love ebbs and flows when you least expect it. But it’s always true. If just for a while.

Each morning Carolina approaches the kitchen faucet, dressed in her white robe, wrinkled skin hanging from each bend of the cloth, shakes her head in disapproval, and attempts to close it in order to capture a few more minutes of sleep. Often, she simply pushes against it, hand over hand, trying to recruit as much force as possible from her 74 year old frame. She tried this today. But the water kept dripping.

Carolina sighed and looked out the kitchen window. The snow had melted. It was spring. Farm equipment was rusting on her land. She went to the toolshed and returned with a hammer.

She went at the faucet. Slowly at first, each swing with more resistance than force. Then she let go. The handle turned 360 degrees. The spigot was going full force.

Carolina’s face felt a tear. This was no remorse for the faucet. That was a $50 dollar plumber bill- it would be nice to have company. No, it was a longing tear. Longing for the single drops that had kept her company for so many years. How would she fall asleep without them?