Bottle of red, bottle of white

Whatever kind of mood you're in tonight
I'll meet you any time you want
In our Italian restaurant

- Billy Joel

October 7

What can be said that has not already been expressed? 

Bring the hostages home. 

Moved in

The quality of silence here is of birdsong.

We leave slivers of ourselves behind.

This is what we mourn.

This is what we celebrate. 

This is the cycle that is life. 

Anxiety

It's clawing at me from the inside out. It always does when I get what I want. 

Fueled by Philz

I dodged so many bullets.

Most of them were from people who didn't know what they wanted. 

Sometimes I think they're the most dangerous ones. 

The horrid neighbor

She and her friends played loud music and screamed in the street at midnight. Then she slashed our tires when we called the cops.

She made fun of Baz for being scared to take the bus when he was in kindergarten.

She bragged in front of us that "I got all the white and Asian people working for me" at school, then beat her child until he wailed audibly.

She took up so much space, so much air, that our own living room felt polluted by her. 

She will never read this. 

Yesterday

Twenty-second anniversary of our first kiss. We sat on a bench on Piedmont Avenue. He pressed down so hard my mouth hurt. Then he paced. "I can't help it," he said. "The energy."