On Kindness

Dearest James - the Irish in the English - the logic in the ether - the ghost in the pack ---

I named you what you asked me too.

Let me forget your hesitations long enough to forget myself - you are so much better than you believe. When the sun is hot but low, and barbecue smells run rampant through the park I think of you. I don't know why. You've been a magnifying glass, a pillow, patient. I waited for the time - "the time" - but it came and I couldn't. I would sit and be with you for as long as I can imagine. It isn't cliched and it makes less sense but I've tried to write you down two hundred times. I have nothing. It seemed easier to sing it out, feel the fall, drink the drink and write a letter that I would never deliver but longed for you to see. I disappeared in the wind before you gave me solace in a late night pause. We went to KFC and shared a sandwich. It was so simple and we only went because I was nearly too drunk to stand. You ordered and we talked because I was lost and you knew the others would leave before I found my way. In an hour you held my floundering, cradled my soul but you had no idea. I breathed and swallowed. Months later you brought that night up when we were alone watching a movie.

- Remember that night when I walked you home, with the sandwich and my bike?

It is a common idea that boys do not remember poignant moments. The time when there is a colossal shift known only to those in the storm. The world is the same but there's been a jolt, a change in the light. We had grown together and with your recollection I fell further into myself. I'm not in love but to be honest I don't really know what that means anyway. Instead I know what it is to come alive under another. How it feels to be resuscitated into the throngs. This is all to you even though you would never believe it. I need you too. The boys were assholes but you stayed around. How do I say what I have to say? How do I write down in real words on real paper that you saved my life? You saved my life. And forevermore without doubt, adding years and the Atlantic Ocean I will never forget how you would answer the phone or how you saw through whatever it was that I was trying to pull over. I took your loftiness to be ambivalence but it turned out to be depression. Like a refrain in your favorite song, it fit. I didn't know and I felt so selfish. How could I not have known? What I wanted was your trust but you wouldn't trust anybody. So a country and a city away I'm writing you down in the only way I ever could. I feel you pulsing far away, I'll dial an international code forever before I'll give you up.