wild fires.

"it's never bad enough to just leave or give up, but it's never good enough to feel right."

"they call this the badlands baby, but it used to be by you."

once again the leaves are quietly composing a symphony of golden yellows, violet crimsons, and burning oranges, pronouncing the return to the doldrums i thought i had left behind a year ago.
i walked with her that day, worn concrete under my feet, her on my lap. i tried to explain, a man speaking arabic in an american market, to her uncomprehending ears.
"i would give you everything you want my dear."
she just shook her head. as we left that place, me noting another landmark of my quickly fading youth etched on a decaying wood sign: calmus creek.
we got quiet then. we walked in silence as the concrete faded back into a worn dirt path laced with the falling fires all around us. i reached for her hand, but she shied away, looking at the hurt in my eyes like it was nothing she could ever understand.
we snaked our way through the twists and turns, past the laundromat on 12th street run by the nice old asian lady. i dropped her inches from the door and waited for the door to click, safety for you, the wild fires for me.
you disappeared, an illusion behind glass and then nothing at all. i inhaled. the exhale was not as simple. the sound of a wild cat on a lifeboat in the middle of the pacific. my vocal chords frayed and my eyes cracked, water running back towards the seas.

i felt so hopeless in that moment. i felt like i could act correctly, say all the right things forever, and you would never see the truth. it took a lot to open your eyes. a relocation that opened the door for infidelity. i was no saint, but you certainly did not make a convincing martyr.
the months passed quickly, new romances filled the empty air of the winter months and blossomed on the spring lawns filled with tulips in a surprising symphony of golden yellows, violet crimsons, and burning oranges.
however, like all things, they faded in the early summer, as did the others and she crossed my mind. it was intoxicating, more so than the aluminum cans being pulled out of the colored cardboard box.
i called her, but just left the line silent. all i wanted was to hear her voice, and with that done i wasn't able to speak. i clumsily clamped shut my cellular telephone and passed on to the world of the unliving.
now, here i am. i have arrived back at her doors. back in these doldrums that pained me so much one year ago, and once again she can not translate my words into the truths they are. i have not the means to disappear again, for i would in an alakazam if i could. just to see her tear streaked face in that blue sequined dress as they called for her on stage again.
just to see what this could all be.
just to not be going blind to the ways of the world and the common tricks of better men.
just to have more than this one last time.
just to not have to do what i know needs to happen.
just to not have to walk away again.