Swimming

Stepping out of the theatre tonight, the rain, the lightning, the deluge. Wet right through so I’ll never get dry again. Feet soaked, hair tendril washed to forehead, I’m swimming home alone. We’re nothing but guppies in the tank. Nothing but coy in the pond.

Wrestling and chewing, tired of something. Been a long time since this itch. Things broken open tonight, pieces of bowl on a wooden floor. Something about home, the unmade bed, the open window, the worn clothes despairing on the chair.

Lightning here, and there’s never lightning here. Flashes of lightning, thunder playing catch up. I want to kiss more people. I used to kiss more people. Streets running river.

I’m going to leave. Not a plane. A train, moving fast, leave and wash my face clean twice a day, become a stranger walking the aisles on a fast train. I will eat more oranges. Become a quiet man who says things quietly and, surely, one who doesn’t say the wrong things so often. I’ll be the stranger in the café window looking out at the rain, paying attention to his sips.

I stop at the corner store for a litre of milk. Not two litres, because I am leaving. I’m probably leaving. In the morning.