"Pocket Change" A photo A watch Cough drops. Broken headphones, favorite CD. A magazine: James Franco on the cover and Jessica Alba's dinner scene.
While people pack these things, beer is served on the plane. Wine, whiskey, champagne too. Cheese and crackers. Soda is free.
People travel to forget, to experience something new. Sometimes you can hurry the pace but can't ever escape.
Bags packed above. Clothes, swimsuits, flip-flops for the feet.
Out of everything that people bring on a plane, only one thing is discreet.
Cough Drops.
He untwists the wrapper, pops it in his mouth. Cherry. The flavor she'd always be.
"Summer Sickness" Sick. A head cold. Sick and it’s early summer. Sick and I can’t get a slumber in; a distraction every five minutes as I lay on the couch playing footsie with the fat cat, also trying to get some rest, and it's all making me delirious. Or maybe it’s the cold medicine.
This all after: backed up against the cement pillar of a stone wall in the yard outside with a book beneath the humid sky. Out there: construction workers loudly yelled on rooftops near. Hispanic hollers from landscapers in the opposite direction, and one buzz from a lawnmower momentarily halts, only to reveal a further one to be heard. And all the while I gave up on itching my flesh as the bugs and wind played tricks against me. That is, until evening inched closer in and those bugs really started biting my skin, inviting me to slap. That was when it became time to get some rest.
So I’m sick and tired, and playing footsie with the fat cat, but the sputtering distractions from all over are just loud enough for me and the cat to get no rest, and I'm oozing from the nose as another sneezing fit begins, I wonder why so much activity happens outside past five p.m. in the summer on a Friday night when I'm sick?
"When We Meet Downtown" Let’s be lame. Laughably dorky, even a little bit touristy. But let us do it in fun: exchanging sips of rum, run around holding hands, wear mock dress socks with naughty words written on them, and make unusual ten-minute friends. Let’s go to a fancy restaurant and run the second we walk through the door. We don’t want to be with them, just dress in nice clothes bought from the Goodwill, like we thought we did. We’ll end up in a grungy bar, and dance to Springsteen in the dark while the deadbeats drink and three men play darts. We’ll kiss in the alleyway, andI willsay you’re my girl. Let us go back and forth exchanging words for a few more days before we realize we won’t see each other again. It was just a weekend of playing pretend.