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photos, unsurprisingly, by lung liu
“This life turned out nothing like I’d planned.” “Why not?” “When I was younger, living in L.A., I only wanted to grow up to be a famous pro-skateboarder. Pretty good at it too, not one of the insane guys, but up there.” “So what happened?” “My father moved us back to San Francisco and I became a musician.”
Saying goodbye, listening to the taste of every word that’s falling from my mouth like a flower petal, pearls spilling on the floor, why doesn’t he hear them? I hope the waiter doesn’t slip. A fortune of curiosity rilling across the floor. Formica table, silver edged, I’ve written about this before. It seems to be a place I say farewell to lovers. Late night, wishing we had picked the music, juke box saviors, noise, funk, tanned in the red light. My taste buds are crying out for the flavour of his sentence structure, how I find myself pronouncing his the word friends. A wild-eyed longing for something new, for all the stories he has to give the world, suffering from never enough. We should have, his future, another time, my past, we could have, but we won’t. Rain check. I want to lick his eyes, tri-coloured, red in the middle like a demon, green edged, the colour of jealousy, getting to fly away and jump away from here, cramped maybe, but I can’t care about that. Amazing. Summertime. Warmth. I’ll see him then, same old city, secrets open, wide, blazing. Press passes. Another stage, another show. Performances on and off, back behind fences, over by a beach, tucked around the lake. Maybe I’ll catch him a rabbit, eight track ears, folding back the soft fur, the sunburned faces of the people in the front row. For once, I don’t mind that I crossed the river. At least he held my hand.
“When I was sixteen, I had a decision land in my lap which would have changed everything. He was very rich, very famous. I see the face of the girl who said yes on magazines.” “I think you made the right choice.” “I think so too, or at least, I like to think so. Sometimes it’s hard to tell, but right now, all of it brought me to being here with you, and I’m okay with that. That feels alright by me.”