Trying
The door closed and we were away from your mother. She had gone to the store for butter which meant something worse. As you promised, we sampled rum, the stuff your uncle brewed. Froggy, spicy, dark; you said you liked what I liked… but in a sort of ironed-flat way. So then, I sampled you… you were lying down and I was taste-testing the world. This was confusing, and also not. I was younger than you, younger than this moment, but old enough to enjoy the accordion feel of a curled boy-body unfolding.
“This is not it,” you said, “Try this.” “Try.”
I liked trying and I wanted to try better.
First, though, I asked for some soda. On the way to your kitchen, you jumped over the sofa, the dog, tripped on a denim hat. Nobody could holler at us for what lived criminally in our brains because our brains were fresh. I said I wanted to have all of it, real fast, you said you liked both slow and fast, alternately. I liked that too, I said.
I get the love of the people who say Yeah to anything and everything
Changes are afloat and my sister is moody. The dog seems tentative and sad. There is no contest now, he gets the love. I get the love of the people who say Yeah to anything and everything. I get the love of the well-wishers and the Girl-scout who sells too many Mystic Mints. This is officially the last night I do any of it. I bend to kiss him and he says, oh once more. This caving home allows me to do what he wants, the walls don’t stop me.
–Stories by Meg Pokrass
–Foreground photo by Manuel Estheimjordan release date | Sneakers