In the next week these are the things that will happen to you. You will wake up, because this is what must occur to begin. Your eyes will change; in your newfound compound vision, you will see his back, and you will see your kitchen in the summertime, quietly making a small meal at sunset, and remember that familiar smell of opening trees and the clicking sound of gears as you ride your bike in circles around your hometown. Eat a grapefruit. It will remind you of your father and of ridged spoons and being spoon-fed. You will think about the placement of things in your body and where the organs lie this morning. When someone tells you something with certainty, say “no!” and leave. Refuse all advice. Think about your brain and how when you hone certain things for long enough, the possibilities of other things begin to dry up; they become overgrown, imprecise, forgotten. You will stop picturing things that you once wanted: the way things look different when you love them. You will start a puzzle. You will regret having started the puzzle; you will begin a book. You will realize you are re-writing a book you’d already wrote, so you will go and find that old book and read it. Then you will go to a different coffee shop and watch a middle-aged couple from over the rim of your laptop. Watch their hands, their bodies leaning in across the table, how they don’t have to look up: they already know. You will make a list of the things you know about yourself. The first thing will be that you are uncertain. You will no longer be able to continue the list because you won’t know what to write. You will want to know things. You might chalk it up to the condition of things; say it was situational. You can delay blame even longer. This week, you will say you didn’t lose anything, you will say there was nothing to begin with, you will show the wrinkles on your hands and say you have thicker skin; this week, you will make no progress. It will end and you will think about the future after this week. You will think about last year when you lay in the grass holding hands and you will think about now and the absence of someone. You will think about this and make statements like: I have never wanted forever except after people are gone. You will read your horoscope and wonder if you made the wrong decision.
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Good, Brother
Peter Markus