TRANSCEND!!!!

The neighbors are watching the Dogs game upstairs. Outside, a skinny man on a bike stops short of the intersection and watches his knuckles. After a while, he looks up to the floor drop windows across the street, he looks at one in particular, and he cocks his head. It’s romantic before it’s strange. I wish him well, goodbye, he’s missed the light and perches a bit further from the building. I’ve done that, I’ve been where he is, standing around the corner wanting to pick up my ceramic package but being unable to move! It’s what helped me recognize sleep paralysis, sort of muddied my thoughts on the supernatural, but remedied constant inner wreckage by way of immobilizing anxiety. The neighbors are stomping their feet and singing a cult song. I think the Dogs are doing well. I know what the skinny man feels, I grab my chest, grab my breast. He might be crying outside. He might need a friendly face, so I start flicking the lights on and off, on and off, ‘till whoever lived in the big window peeped out. Once they did, I’d flail my arms all around and point with sharp fingers to the street corner, the skinny man on the curb with the bike. But no one comes to the window. And the curtains are drawn, anyway. I tried, skinny man, I press my hand to the window. The building shakes, the front door is open. I watch a man in a jersey carry a box of recycling, he sets it down at the front gate. He goes inside for a moment, then returns flicking a lighter. Sweet smoke trails the building hip to reach up into my living room and shake every hand available. The man in the jersey kicks a rock and knocks some bottles rolling from the box. It’s loud. I look to the big window, thinking I’ve seen a shift in the curtain. I look to the skinny man and see he’s checking for the same thing. I look to the Dogs man and he’s looking at me. We wave to each other. I’ve never met that man in my life. 

The man in the jersey takes me on a date the following Thursday. We drive to Pasadena and eat lobster rolls from Maine. I ask the waitress if they have local fish and she tells me yes, every other thing on the menu. I ask why they chose to outsource their lobster. She looks at the jersey man and then back at me because he doesn’t really look like he thinks much at all. The waitress hates me. I wish the jersey man hated her so he’d go muss her up, go pin her against a wall or something to protect my honor. But she’s a lady, with fairly sized breasts and long necklaces, and she is serving him food. He wriggles like a puppy for the waitress. I’m embarrassed to eat my lobster roll. The waitress watches me through tiny little square holes in the wall. I fucking hate outdoor dining. 

Jersey man walks me home, because it is also his home. He had no choice in the matter. When we reach the front door I ask where he wants to go. He says, inside, and I say, well, yes, inside, and which apartment would you like to go to? He weighs it in his head. His head is a brick, he weighs it side to side. He asks if I have central cooling, and I say no. He weighs it again. I roll back into my heels and watch oncoming traffic. It’s strange, that this man I’d never met had been hearing every sound I did, at that exact moment. I forgot to ask what he did for a living. Sometimes I evade the question because I know the information’ll just come in time. But jersey man said little to nothing tacky enough to catch, and apparently neither of us cared to share any more. He’s still weighing. Skinny man’s back. He’s on an electric scooter this time. That’s embarrassing. I near wave to him. He catches in the same spot, and I notice the street lamp has spotlit him. Oh, I say, which interrupts jersey man’s weighing for a moment, it’s intentional! What a romantic. I look up to the door light and note jersey man and I are completely fucked in terms of ideal lighting conditions, far fucked to the point we’d never make it as a couple, it was wrong from the start. I’m not entirely sure I’d want the love skinny man has to offer. But I don’t want that, and I don’t want the jersey man special, and I like being alone but can afford to indulge in romance. It’s like being ready to get a dog. Or children. But with freaky sex and hair pulling and Oops! Did someone mention marriage? conversations over beer pitchers and hot peanuts. I think… I’m feeling tired, jersey man’s saying to me. I say, okay, goodnight, be well, and we stand for about fifteen seconds motionless before he lets himself inside. I listen to him clunk up each step, I watch skinny man scratching his head, watching the big window, weighing. 

Art ;

Bird and Electricity Dreams, Jack Breakfast 2021

6x6” oil painting

https://www.etsy.com/listing/889918598/bird-and-electricity-dreams-original-oil?click_key=e3cb389f88890d220d859f8f7071079d828c6407%3A889918598&click_sum=ce59934a&ref=shop_home_recs_4&pro=1&frs=1