of Hearts

The tab's been paid, he said, and I couldn't believe the deep laugh in my chest. Another Wednesday night at that bar, in that well-known nook, with smiles you've known since Stockholm was new and unknown and a terror in unending daylight. Familiar faces line your periphery and the early alarm clock seems an unreal joke. She ventures a careful smoke and you giggle in the midst of misery.

Your frame seems thinner; it has been so long since I've seen you. Your clothes are the same. I still love you, regardless. He writes and says I can keep these keys through April; she says by then it'll be spring and you won't be able to leave. Voices come from across the ocean and say I won't believe it until you are here. I could not handle the disappointment. And in the end, is that not the truth? That you have a million pearls in your hand, and your most difficult task is to choose the one. You are never left with grains of sand. I walk home quickly from the bar, keep beat to the tune in my ears, stop only to write drunken texts in the middle of the road, trying desperately to explain the joy of sunlight on the horizon.

Tomorrow, how waking will be painful. Today, how much more worth it makes the insouciance.