Fiction for my morn.

To make the distance back home again is impossible. Though you know the route from countless travels, it will never again be what it was. For your reasons, for mine, it cannot exist any longer… If it did, we, we would not.

Surrounded by wood and flame the chain lightning slowly exits the bottle. I suck it, you down it, and I watch the plan unfold across your face. Through the arches of dark eyebrows, into the pools of shadowed eyes, down the slope of your nose, falling on your mouth with such an impact it shapes your lips to the form of perfect parallel lines. Leaving its scriptures tucked into pores and around the stubble of your square jaw.

The tip of your whiskey coated tongue touches the corner of your mouth, like you do when you are trying to find the words. I don’t let you catch me looking, so you can take your time. Forcing isn’t your style anyway. A man of patience and strong shoulders.

I knew you’d still try. I don’t fight, because I know it has to be done. One last go, taming the memories, breaking in the winds of haunting visions. There’s something in all of us that we have to settle. You can have yours, if I can have mine.

You aren’t a First Of May any longer, but still, you’re no Doc Bates… I won’t tell you what I know, because my thighs tingle when I catch that cocky swagger out of the corner of my eye. Something about your thickness, the rough of your fingertips, that lonesome gaze. I don’t wish to shatter that air with tidbit truth.

Your path will run close to that of the High Line and I imagine that the western skies will give you room to remember. It’ll give you something to pluck out on the beaten guitar when you stop to breathe. Something to make you remember the curves of my flesh and the scent of my skin.

For any man that roams, hobo, cowboy, Indian, the night holds great power. You won’t stop and set up camp because you are tired so much as you have to for the sake of the lands. There are rules out here and you know which crosses and ties to live by, which stakes you will let be pounded into your heart.

Before morning light comes, you’ll already have finished your duffer. Before you hop back on, you’ll note the scent of this wild. It’ll become the title of the song you end every night with, from here on out.

That place, you knew it was sad before you were born into it. You knew the life and what was expected, but it went against what every part of what you believed in. You had to pack up, kiss foreheads, otherwise it would have been the death of you. It was of her. And you’ll play the details back when you start recognizing the stones.

And when you come upon it, you won’t let but a long, slow exhale escape. Tip your hat to the stampers on gunnels, and turn around to go back to where you’re from.

You knew you couldn’t go home again.