starter

I’ve started this conversation with you a thousand times in my head. Variations on a theme; the beginnings of a deep discussion where we chatter incessantly, occasionally tripping awkwardly over words like scattered tree limbs on the ground after a storm. Details. I don’t remember the details. But we talk and move from topic to topic, delving into the dusty areas of our psyche, like the room no one enters for fear of undressing old wounds.

In reality, I don’t call or write. You don’t call or write. We stumble along because we’re trying to reach some destination that has no real path. And we’re not even sure where we’re going. There’s no map for this, no clipped foreign vocals guiding us via Garmin. We’re stuck in our own heads, saying the things that need to be said to no one but our phantom versions of each other. Screaming at the top of our lungs, but never out loud.

This is the alternate reality. The one where nothing goes unspoken and we’re always standing together. Face to face. Arm in arm. I start the conversation, and you answer back.