every time you close your eyes

a cloud came off the sea tonight like the hand of god, dripping lightning bolts and pushing pink through an atmosphere of unease. it glowed rosy like the source of light itself and seemed to intimate wrath in the ironic way that only water vapor and electricity can. only... there were still children around the pool. and i wasn't afraid.

i texted fstop and told her there's lightning over the ocean and i don't like where we are heading and i don't know quite what to do. and it's all true and honesty is the risk i'm afraid to take. i adore it and especially in these situations where i'm sure it would bear me out as champion but it's too frightning. the hand of god fell dark below the illuminating horizon and dissipated. what i hate is that the honesty is leaving. she's been my best friend and now i can barely talk to her. used to be her i'd come to telling stories about danielle or georgia girl or whomever. complaints, sadness, irony, more. honesty. and it was ok. but now it's her and i can't talk to her about her like i'd talk to her about someone else. there's too much at stake. i'm mostly calculating and deliberate. cold, selfless, and composed. it kills me when she's not around for a day or two and every time i check my phone and it's empty.

i can't tell her this. i can't let her deal with me or protect me from sadness. she must be honest with me, must not rethink her words, must be eager and forthright. in order to prevent her from censoring herself, i censor myself. irony weeps. and i've killed the honest relationship in a quick blow. as if something else could be done.

i saw a picture of them this morning, her and dave. i knew it was real, i knew he was real, and i knew i'd find that picture someday. still a shock to the system though. still not a bright and wheaties way to start my day. the pool of loneliness seeps through my socks and puddles my toes. i do find it hilarious though, how we each have our foils in the other. there's just that glarind difference. she has dave with arms to fall asleep in and a mouth which does business even ignorant of the background music. i've got danielle who, while unbelievably sweet sometimes, is ultimately aloof, far away, and is dating another guy. not quite as jealousy-inspiring as i'd have hoped. still she's there. she texted me tonight without provocation, just to say she hopes i'm having a good day. i found out that i was the first to introduce her to camera obscura and that she's going to a concert soon - and not alone - although she wouldn't tell me with whom. told me she'd be thinking of me even moreso though. i can't decipher the happy from the sad anymore. the intimate from the lonely. i think they breed each other. i told her i didn't like where we were headed and that i don't quite know what to do and she never wrote me back.

last week i had a dream. there was a crowd inside a grade school classroom, all boys and girls my own age but we were grudgingly participating and not questioning why we were there. i saw fstop there, at the peak of our confusion, and she pretended not to see me. i agreed that it was better this way, less complicated, and so i pretended not to see her either. and so the dream ended.

the most poignant thing i remember from that dream is how she looked. it was recent, modern, unlike how she was when she last visited two years ago. i realized only later that this means i fabricated her in my subconscious... an entire person out of photographs. that's the saddest thing.

a few nights ago i did it again. i was wandering around a scantly-lit campus with a group of kids at night, looking for a film screening. when we found the classroom, it was full of giddy people and the chairs were taken so we sat on the floor. i noticed her sitting a chair ahead of me so i said hello and we had a quick, excited, and awkward reuinion. hugging from out respective positions, maybe kissing (i can't remember), and finally just holding hands. her voice was just fine. i fabricated it too.

roughly every ten minutes i glance over to find no new message on my phone. either she's got nothing to say to me or she's lost in her own real world. which means dave.

technology gets the best of me. this isn't the first relationship i've built on text messages and internet conversations. i hope it's the last. i haven't seen this kid in two and a half years but i feel closer to her than most anyone else. she's probably my best friend. and when i get down to the reality of the situation, i realize that what she is not... is a real person. she's not a girl with a big smile and breasts and smells and a striped shirt... she's words on a screen. the only variations are minimal: computer or phone, choose your medium. much like the dreams i've had. i told her a few weeks ago i don't know you at all. really. all the things you learn from being with someone. whether she sleeps on her back or her stomach or her side. what color her eyes are. how many earrings she wears. whether she cries when she listens to music alone in the car. what her favorite flavor of icecream is. the stories behind each scar or whether her freckles make constellations. that is important. and what do i have? words on a page. as for the rest? i've filled in the blanks myself. it makes it tough to have those honest conversations... about the stories and all the bad things. even if it's not directly contradicting any conscious preconceived notion that i hold about her, it challenges each line i've written in with pen... without permission even. that's not fair. it's not fair for me to do that to her and it's not fair now for me to reserve my honesty and true words in order to constantly navigate through every possible unhealthy reaction. most of all, it's not fair that she's so many hundreds of miles away.

i had a daydream while reading a few hours ago. we would take a few weeks off from school, jobs, and take a car and drive west. a wagon so we could fold flat the seats and unfurl sleeping bags and make a bed. we would pay for gas and unperishable food but not much else. drink water. and cameras and film. we would finally shun the dumb unwritten rules of society. we would pull off the road without exits. we would park without white lines. we would climb trees if they looked fun and run through corn fields taking pictures at dusk. we would walk through the deserts and climb mesas and camp. shower together in occasional shady motel bathrooms to conserve water. we would have fun for once in our lives and the only rules are to never read into anything and to never think of the future. jonathan safran foer once wrote "my only regret is how much i believed in the future." we would pretend we were the royalty of carrot flowers and find out what each other's bodies were for. always awkward, never embarrassing. have sex in the backseat or on the side of the road. it would mean everything and nothing at the same time. eventually we would trade film, say goodbye, and return home. nothing lost, only memories (and photographs) gained. and we would learn never to be lonely from each other again.