By Aleksey Calvin

I met you on the corner by

The booze store

In the red brick house

Your old place used to be

You smiled like shattered glass

I couldn't tell if you looked older

But then again I didn't even know if it was me

 

On the Thanksgiving Day

The sky is grey and the streets are silent

I lit a clove

First in years and

We walked on down to the creek

You said you didn't seem to belong anywhere

I joked about your hair

Electricity in the air between us

And it hurts

 

I shivered

Like I was laying on the hillside before dawn

You didn't notice, lamenting details I'll forget

While I recalled the wine bottles once

We smashed

And offered you a menthol cigarette

There was talk

Of the few friends who died

And what our fates may be

Loose Dead Ends and

Kids setting fire in the streets

A little deer crept on by the trash-bin

 

When the dusk cries colors on the leaves

Which the darkness eats

And the chill silence of the streets

Suddenly

No longer welcomes us

I didn't want to ask what now

We all knew, always knew

What the answer was

When we hid behind the blind walls and broken machines

Drinking desperate

For that

Something

No one will recognize

And yet what we had, those little festivals of hope

Campfires in the lonely forests of cities

Were Never stepping stones, but ends.

("Might a whole life sometimes become just a radioactive aftermath of a compromise?"

A wiser person would look back and say.)

"I have to say, I can no longer remember the best parts of our hours…

Or I don’t want to…

They are too pained to remember Now

So, even then, maybe we cursed ourselves to forget them.

"And What is that closeness anyway? Why?"

I ask you and, before you can answer, wake up.

 

And as I wake up from this dream…

I know that it too I will have to forget

But I sneakily scribble it down

Because I may become hopeless,

But never cynical.

 

- 2013