Introduce

A day races across your shattered nerves. It asks you to curate the design of your life, asks you to tell me a little bit about yourself, and you want to be the diligent student more than ever. We reminisce about Los Angeles in our youth, try to weave our futures into one another the way they were before, before before there are so many befores now my body has stopped predicting afters. It sounds like you want to be happy, she says, and you laugh at the summary. But technically, she's not wrong. He turns a curious eye your way and you wonder what the tales you tell sound like from the outside. You can schedule another session for next week whenever you're ready. You are so busy your lungs forget to breathe for a full day. The rain arrives, you miss your steady steps along the river and instead here we are racing into another pair of smiling eyes, another set of hopeful futures, don't you know I came to this city making deals with the devil and as long as I am
still here I do not feel
I have lost.