Stray Dog

    Here recently, I have come into a bit of a horrible conundrum. It's one of those, boy meets girl but girl is only in town for about a week and doesn't know boy has fallen for her quite quickly, sort of things. It's one of those, I am pretty sure the universe loves to play terrible, mean-spirited, not-funny-at-all jokes on me, kind of things.

I had all but forgotten about women, really. Enough of them had proved how horrible they could be that I was just done. I had come to terms with being alone until I died and I was happy about that. But  then there she was. Sitting across from me at that dive bar while we were both accosted by an older gentleman who tried to teach us math while discussing his fifty-four confirmed kills in the Vietnam War.

Seeing her there amidst clouds of cigarette smoke, which admittedly we contributed quite a bit of, I was reminded of what it meant to be entranced by someone. The pointed frames of her glasses stretching just slightly past the edges of her face. Tattoos for old friends, favorite bands, parents, for everyone. A ring of polished metal strung through the septum of her nose. Short brown hair meticulously tussled. I spent a large part of the evening wondering why she was there with me.

We left the bar for the porch of my house. Conversation flowed easily until the sun began to creep its way inch by inch above the tree line. A short car ride back to her parents house.


This is me giving up. This is me keeping my mouth shut.


Another night and another bar. I hated bars. People constantly milling about yelling and cursing, all social skills abandoned by the presence of alcohol in bloodstreams, but there she was dressed all in black because her closet contained no other colors, and if she was there so was I.

After a few more drinks and more than a few cigarettes, the bar began to close and we wondered how it had become three in the morning. It was her porch this time, well her parent's porch. This was preceded by a tour of their home filled with knick knacks and a baby grand piano that took up just enough of the living room to not be obtrusive.


This is me kicking myself for not being able to speak up. This is me bottling my emotions and putting them away somewhere because she'll be gone soon.


Days filled with coffee shops and nights of walks around her neighborhood with talk of which neighbors were rich or poor or happy with their marriage or disappointed in their children.

Her last night we spent with a bottle of wine in a basement house because there was music there. She ended up spending more time with that wine then I did. We went in search of food to help sober her up some. On the way, she ended up lighting the filter of more than one of her cigarettes.

After we had eaten I started the drive to her parent's house.

"Are you taking me home?"
"I thought that's what you wanted to do."
"I just want to hang out with you. I don't care about what we're doing, but I want to be with you."


This is me dreading goodbyes. This is me hating myself for not being able to talk.


The next morning I drove her to the bus stop. We said goodbye and that was that. She was gone and I was as alone as I had started.