on the occassion of the 4th anniversary of my father's 55th birthday

We rode in silence. My hand on your leg but all I held was my own counsel, wondering if the words were cutting through you...

We made our exit. Three right turns. And stopped after the first left in the road. Birds behind us and above, forming and reforming. Ebb, flow, a mandelbrot in the sky...

We watched and commented. You said surreal. I said they were there to pick the bones and wondered if you took my meaning. Or rather how you would take it. You said nothing...

We returned to our drive and you said you would never love anyone more than me. I waited and strained. My will was overcome by a lapse in judgment:

"Is there was a 'but' coming?"

You said no.

We hugged after we parked, came inside, lay down and talked in the dark. About him, about us, about our failing youth as it ails and withers in the face of experience. At best we have a pressed leaf (where a seed was once planted, and a tree might have grown)
next to our deathbed hearts...

Before we met I felt my will shaped by fate, and now I wonder if I was wrong. Perhaps she is as cruel as I've heard. My charm is not what it was, and the old bird has lain raw our skin and taken her toll in pinpricks and tar.

- from my journal (approximately), 25 September 2005