These streets smell like exhaust
pipes. Familiar. Habitual. But always a wisp away from being gone. I wish I had
held you closer. My fingers encircling your waist. Do you remember running
through the long November nights for those scalding mugs of coffee, knowing
your tongue would be burned from the bitter root taste of the cheap coffee
beans? The way you looked when you talked about feeding rice to pigeons and how
sad you were remembering when the neighbor told you the pigeons you had fed
were going to explode from all the rice you’d thrown out the window. You were
only four years old when she crushed your dreams. But that was okay because the
following day you pooped in her shoes.
You came up to me, tears in your eyes, asking if I could help with the planning. I would have done anything for you. Even then. So we went to your kitchen and drew up our plans with your pack of crayons. I was the blue crayon. You were the red crayon. Our paths wound from your house, through your backyard, and into your neighbor’s. She kept her shoes on the back porch and you colored them in brown on your map. You took my hand the next day. You led me out of your house and we followed your plan. I followed my blue path and you followed your red. I raced down the steps of your back porch and ran to open your back gate. You waited until I gave you the go-ahead sign and then raced into the alley. I opened the neighbor’s back gate and watched you follow your red path towards the shoes, brown on the map, and brown once you were through with them. I was a gentleman. I didn’t look when you turned them brown. You came racing towards me. Your shoes made heavy thuds on the concrete and the force of your speed caused wind to push against my face as you ran past me. I locked the gate and turned towards you. This was where the red and blue path ended. You hadn’t drawn us back into your house but you invited me back for snacks, a reward for a job well done.
I don’t know what you did with that map. Did you throw it out? I would have kept it. Just like the letters that you wrote to me when I went away to college. The oil from my fingers is starting to rub the graphite letters off the pages. My head wraps around your words. I think of them as puzzles, hoping to find something, anything new, perhaps about where you are now. I spend my nights alone at home so I have plenty of time to think about the words. I’ll pull the curtains aside and if the shadows of the trees are long, if the light that falls from the lampposts is dull enough, if the streets outside are dark enough, then I can imagine that the light from the cars outside is your red path in the night.
You came up to me, tears in your eyes, asking if I could help with the planning. I would have done anything for you. Even then. So we went to your kitchen and drew up our plans with your pack of crayons. I was the blue crayon. You were the red crayon. Our paths wound from your house, through your backyard, and into your neighbor’s. She kept her shoes on the back porch and you colored them in brown on your map. You took my hand the next day. You led me out of your house and we followed your plan. I followed my blue path and you followed your red. I raced down the steps of your back porch and ran to open your back gate. You waited until I gave you the go-ahead sign and then raced into the alley. I opened the neighbor’s back gate and watched you follow your red path towards the shoes, brown on the map, and brown once you were through with them. I was a gentleman. I didn’t look when you turned them brown. You came racing towards me. Your shoes made heavy thuds on the concrete and the force of your speed caused wind to push against my face as you ran past me. I locked the gate and turned towards you. This was where the red and blue path ended. You hadn’t drawn us back into your house but you invited me back for snacks, a reward for a job well done.
I don’t know what you did with that map. Did you throw it out? I would have kept it. Just like the letters that you wrote to me when I went away to college. The oil from my fingers is starting to rub the graphite letters off the pages. My head wraps around your words. I think of them as puzzles, hoping to find something, anything new, perhaps about where you are now. I spend my nights alone at home so I have plenty of time to think about the words. I’ll pull the curtains aside and if the shadows of the trees are long, if the light that falls from the lampposts is dull enough, if the streets outside are dark enough, then I can imagine that the light from the cars outside is your red path in the night.
