We had laid some ground rules,
before we crossed the threshold
even
and then there were none.
I remember being glad to be here,
but only vaguely,
an outline,
like when my sister was born,
or the first time I went
rollerskating,
cold and unemotional.
I'd love to say I have regrets,
but, at the moment,
I keep coming back to the time
I told you I find
libraries oddly comforting:
I don't know why I said that.
I remember the first time I could
look in your eyes for more than
a few seconds, without awkwardly
looking away,
pretending to just scan the room
or find the nearest window
like the room was filling with
poison gas.
Of course,
in the first weeks, months,
oxygen supply was more of an issue
than all the social rules
we learned by accident,
that we tried so hard to
break, dismantle, bury and forget,
without turning into the kind of people
who make strangers on the street
vote Republican.
I remember not being in a hurry,
because we had time,
and it was just
open.
Frontiers and prairies and et cetera.
And now we are not hurried, tragically,
all because of bad associations,
that crossing of awful high and awful low
expectations,
recurring themes,
and having decided that confidence
is not just overrated,
but goddamned dangerous.
There is a tension there,
and I suppose everyone knows,
and maybe I'm just feeling oversensitive today,
but if no one is keeping score,
how can we know who is winning?
And what of the viewers
at home?