Before Swine

They text to say they're just up Hudson Street. It's been a day of words and undress; I scramble to make the appropriate adjustments to society. We order another round, and another, even though it's a school night, and the bartender gives us a round on the house because it's Tuesday, and somebody should be getting drunk.

He says You have to know if you are here temporarily or if this is your permanent home, because it will dictate how you live, and I can't begin to decide what kind of life I am leading. I don't have a home at all, I say, but the arguments don't make sense out of context. The bar is another than it used to be, but you fall instantly in love with it and the walk home is so short, even in your stupor.

She is still up when you get home. We sit for hours, poring over her paintings and trying to decipher meaning. I thought I was painting happy childhood memories, she implores, but all you see are abandoned animals despondently slumped in dark corners. Here I thought I wasn't making art, and I wasn't revealing anything. You tell her the same goes for your writing.

You wish it wasn't as transparent
as it always is.