2001-07-24
3:44 a.m.

You mentioned how Saint Edward's smelled, the girl used to smell like church. At the laundry mat, I would hug on her from behind, and talk about going to Italy. I would talk about Rome and Florence, and their churches, Chiesa di San Pietro in Vincoli and Chiesa di Santa Croce. I would smell her hair, and rest my face against her neck, and tell her that she smelled like church.

She didn�t like the idea. I think it made her uncomfortable, but she did. She smelled like home and longing.

I don�t know what she smells like now. I don�t like to get that close. The last time I held her she smelled of some boy, sweet and heady.

The girl came to see me today.

We stood in my kitchen and looked at each other.

It has been a week since we last spoke.

But then we didn�t speak, we just stared until one of us felt enough unease to look away. Twenty minutes of arm crossing and shifting of weight, and stares.

There is nothing to say.

She is vague about her life.

I can�t live on vague. It makes me fill in the gaps myself, and this makes my head hurt, and heart hard.

She won�t talk about where she has been. She has just been out.

The girl buys me lunch of taquitos, and a horchata.

I let her sleep in my bed.

You see she has no where to stay. The girl has places where she can sleep at night, but she has no where to stay.

The girl needs a nap.

The girl has places where she can sleeps at night, but either can sleep, or is involved in other distractions.

Distractions that are vague, and make her smell other than her self.

The girl needs sleep.

So, the girl needs a nap.

The girl spots my new phone. It is black and smart looking, and sounds like something familiar. I had to replace the static ridden Conair she left me with. She marvels over it, asks me where, and what, and how much, curls up with it on the bed and falls.

I sit in the kitchen and marvel at today�s heat.

I marvel, she sleeps, and drools on my pillows.

I marvel at the the afternoon light on her, and that she is here and gone and here, but not at all.

I walk to the bed room doorway, and marvel, and she sleeps.

When the girl wakes, and comes into the kitchen. We have nothing to say, but it is strange and nice that she is here.

She has sleep lines on her face, her hair is messy, mascara smudged, and her shirt damp.

I am a funny man, because I tell her she can stay as long as she wants.

But then none of her stuff is here, and she gets restless.

And she takes one of my best tee shirt, puts it on, walks out into the early evening, and waves me a later.

She never returns, the girl never returns anything.

I wait on the landing to see if she will come back.

But she doesn�t.