30

warning: this is really emotional, filled with cliches, unedited.

it's 4 o clock in the morning in Minnesota and

my phone is suddenly ringing and though

I have a slumbering canine on my body I reach over hers

to open that electronic device because

it is YOUR name I see.

Max.

I have always enjoyed your name, enjoyed

that one playful syllable and the way

the "x" sound tickles the roof of your mouth

and becomes a smile.

I am so surprised it is you, floored, even,

that your brain in its drunken state would

trace through its pathways, deciding which

person connected to which number connected to

which finger you press--

that I was that destination in your mind.

I hide in the secret parts of your mind

which only come alive once the floodgates have been

knocked down by a flood of alcohol.

I haven't thought of you in weeks, months, even.

other people ask me how you are, if we still talk, and

your name comes as a shock.

"Max?" it takes a few seconds to dust the cobwebs,

to oil the rig so my voice doesn't squeak

(but it still does):

"...Max?"

I have tried for some time

to make your name a foreign language to my ears.

We talk for an hour.

You describe your collegiate woes,

(which is not to belittle them, only to label them accurately)

it sounds as if certain ratios are askew--substance abuse : fulfillment.

We talk about your "friends from home"

as if I am not one of them.

I feel for you Max.

But I also cannot help but feel

an awful twinge in the pit of my belly

as you describe the girl you first had sex with

and how you feel especially connected with her

because she was the first one.

Subtext: it was not me.

Subtext: why the fuck are you calling me Max?

Using me as your diary after

so many of my own entries are filled with your name

alternating between

writing it because I liked the sound of it

and that I could use it so often, with a reason

--and writing it as an explicative, to be cursed.

You sit at your desk feeling strife about

others and your own internal twistings

oddly mirroring where I was exactly

one year ago today,

sitting at my desk

hating you and loving you and my insides

turning themselves inside out for you.

Subtext: I am still wounded from you,

and I am not sure if this is helping me heal or

ripping off a freshly formed scab

It's 5 o clock in the morning and there are

one hundred things I should be doing with my

time instead of talking to you.

But, here I am

and there I was

and there I

might be

later.

I am here, for you,

because I love you

but you should really learn how to read between the lines.