for April 5: For Jeff, then and now.

Wake up in the dark. Listen to the rain mimic the song in the dream you were just having. Watch the new Winter light hatch the day, a coral polyp, purple in the bottom of the ocean- bursting. Remember what cold is. Remember the sound cold makes, the disgruntled sound of the faucet, feel that sound. Lonely and alone, the accentuated alliteration of feeling- the way the "L"'s role careless off your fingertips and collect in puddles on the floor. Forget about the puddles. Don't care about the puddles. Spread out like a starfish in the middle of the bed. Make the bed feel like home. Stand in the kitchen, naked. Drink wine. Make coffee. Drink wine. Occupy both hands, all the time. Make your hands feel like home. Imagine, just for a moment as you claim the hill to the side of the house, while carrying four bags of groceries and the Sunday paper that the man who pops onto his front porch in nothing but his dressing gown and and invites you in for a glass of water, or a cup of tea or- "anything you fancy,really" is just being neighborly. Entertain the thought of going in, just for a moment. Sing all the songs no one knows you love. Play air piano as if you know what you're doing, no one can see you. Find yourself humming bad disco or 70's porno soundtrack you've only just invented. Make yourself at home. Ignore the ache. Ignore the way you've learned to recognize the sound of each individual eyelash. Have lapses in judgment. Take them dancing. Take them to a bar. Wonder how many of the smug shiny people are building themselves a home, deep, somewhere hidden behind the spleen, working at being oblivious to the lithe limbs of lonely. Consent to being set up on yet another bad date. Stop carrying the conversation, take up the conversation you had with yourself, earlier alone in bed, making sounds you'd forgotten you knew how to make- good thing you live alone. Wonder if you make him nervous because you just can't make yourself care about the silence emanating from his perch next to yours or the fact that his hand keeps lightly brushing your thigh and all you really want to say is "you've really got to commit to that or stop." The incessant buzzing of a thousand gossamer mosquitoes. Wish you were home already. Start flirting with the waiter. Wonder what it will be like to wander home just slightly less then sober, stumble a little on your front porch, fish for your keys in the gaping hole of your pocket, take off one item of clothing for each progressive space between the front door and your bed, a bread crumb path for nobody, tonight- find your bed, the sound of your head on the pillow, the muffled crunch of one leaf under foot, one body carving itself a way to be whole, a way to be home.