mmmcccv

To Wake and Call Your Name at 4:00 in the Morning

But you, of course, aren’t here. It’s been
over a year and a half, in fact, since I’ve
had even a visitor set foot in my apartment.
I’m having so many random thoughts this
morning. It’s going to be a really good
day. I’m not sure why that’s stuck inside
of my head, along with everything else
that is right now, at such an early hour.
Because it sounds like it is raining out?
Because a couple of minutes ago we
texted each other a few words. Well,
he texted me a few words. Mine were,
as usual, a bit more than a few. For
a moment all of the good feelings I
have about this upcoming day are
wearing with each line that I write
with my pink felt tip Papermate,
which I now notice matches the
circular mouse pad I use that
has gold, violet and pink
stipes across an off-white

background, a pattern one 

might see through a Louis 

Vuitton window, I think,
or in Goyard, which I think of as
a similar but more colorful depart-
ment store that I’m not even certain
is in business anymore. Stores pop up
out of nowhere when you’ve believed them
long out of business existence, if you’ve (I’ve)
even thought about them at all – but, to
me, they simply cease to exist when
the local store is suddenly shuttered
and I’m left with wondering but for
a short moment before the mem-
ory of it ever being there is gone.
I say these things as if they’re
what everyone presumes, but
these are, as far as I know,
my own thoughts this morning,
no matter how it might seem
they’d qualify as somewhat
universal. Why it is these lines
are now somehow juicing my 

mood back up to close to where
it was at the top of the page
I really do not know, but
isn’t it fortuitous, though?
As the pink ink – and I
can tell you here that there
is a more appropriate name
for this color that I, as usual,
cannot begin to recall; so what
is there but for me to call it pink,
as the more specific name of it

I’ll no doubt never learn – 

as the pink ink is emptied 

from the pen which I ever so 

lightly grasp, and as it moves 

from one line to the next, 

leaving a more legible than
usual (for me, these days) trail,
the speed with which I do this:
ever slower and slower.
One thinks the death of a
close loved one such a
melancholy notion that
it seems we often block
or shield the thought from
our imagination, it’s just too
tragic for us to think it. And

then it happens.  Or is this, 

like the rest of these pink
thoughts, just me? When 

such a tragedy hits, does it 

not seem for at least a length 

of seemingly incessant time just
too sad an experience for anyone
of us that is left here to live. Of
course it is that. Of course it’s
one more thing that sitting here
this morning, having just awoken
only a few minutes hence, I am
thinking. And so I pause, for
just a moment spilling not a bit 

of pinkish purple ink, thinking
that I must have a mostly
offset perception, one that
is just a little bit unusual,
about the death of ones
that are held dear, and
not just after the dear one
that has departed, whether 

recently or a long time ago,

but in particular if it’s recent,
in particular someone you or I
may have loved, held very dear,
but all of a sudden is no longer,
is but, as it can be said, newly
departed, the one that was
loved but is now gone. How
one’s outlook, one’s general
disposition must in particular
affect how one might generally
perceive such passing; who can
unfix such predetermined notions,
I wonder, on this cool San Francisco
morning, as I sit in my cozy pad atop
my more and more comfortable bed.
My place, the home, the room in which
I have lived for, now, over one year and
a half, feels so much softer than it did when
I first arrived. How that happens, how a place
changes so irreversibly once it has been lived in.
What seemed like such a miniscule space filled with
such solid stops, such hard-edged corners – corners
that are tucked in here and there and at such solemn
angles; corners poking about, as well, nothing but
dead-hard ends and edges – and yet, look now
at where I sit, how small I am, feeling almost
sensual, facing my black, circular fan,
the Honeywell, that today is sitting atop
a box that sits also upon my bed and
it is leaning, the box, and it’s wrapped
in a soft and fuzzy-looking linen, leaning
like, I think, just now, having not had
such a thought about this box, like
the Leaning Tower of Pisa, so that
the circular Honeywell fan that sits
atop the box is almost touching,
my face as it softly blows the
air that is in my room into
and around my mouth, my
hair, my nose, my ears,
my scalp and all the
skin the surface of my face

(and isn’t a face but a surface?) 

is made of, as

I write, the
pink- or whatever-
colored Papermate, wriggling
around in my sort-of-almost grip,
the ink makes curlicues and slashes,
strides and gashes almost indist-
inguishable from each other and
again, and even slower, has now
reached and soon thereafter finishes
doing so at the very bottom of this
lined page atop a most comfortable
spread, what I suppose would
actually be called a coverlet
right here beneath me,
between my skin
and the sheets
that sit upon
the mattress
that is the
top of my
very comfortable bed.