Random little bits as they flit through...

And sometimes, in the late hours of the afternoon, I miss your smile. And I'd like for you to come sit passenger-side in the car with me. And we'll chat on art and life and raising our aborted little half-families. And we'll laugh, small quiet laughs, about the way we used to be: on fire and passionate for life. And we'll settle in and slump down, slowly, under the weight of life. Drama free, clutching our cheap, diner-pot coffee with hands that used to brush and cause a spark. Our hands that are now comfortably familiar. Our hands that hug, and type, and dog-ear pages, and dial numbers synonymous with comfort and warm shoulders on which to shed tears and swap heavy loads. And I'm relieved we didn't suit in the end, because it shouldn't be a struggle, should it?

What I've learned recently would fill hollow mountains.
And what I've learned has taught me that it can be easy.
A cup of coffee. A look. A glance shared across a room. A cold beer, sweating down over your wrists, on the front porch. These things are as easy as breathing. They are organic. They are not forced. They are not whispered trysts in stairwells and exotic rendezvous, but they are real. And that's something these days. Amazingly, it's more than I ever thought it could be.

And I find myself oddly enamoured of lazy Sundays, and football, of all things; the way the pregame shows sound while I lay on the couch, semi-comatose, eyes closed, curled up behind you while you check your fantasy stats. And of long showers and breakfast sandwhiches and slurpees and aquariums. And I remember that the heart is such an odd thing, and how something so simple as a smile can start it healing up again.