(no subject)

The ferns up the hillside looked to be shadowboxing the very breeze egging them on, but through them against the clouds I could still see Kate waiting for me. She was flushed, her hair was all over, her hands were red from tearing at one another. Had I ever seen her so angry? Maybe when we were teenagers. It was hard to remember down every alley at once. She was still now. Kinetic rage had subsided into a sort of mask, as her overbite was so far down her bottom lip it pulled the rest of her face tight above it, like she'd wanted to devour someone and almost settled for herself. I deserved every bit of it, I reminded myself, even if not for whatever she was presently convinced I'd done. I'd have felt sad if I weren't feeling so sick. Through the nausea and fear most other emotions were making little headway, but I tried naming to myself those I ought to be feeling, since doubtless I'd feel them later. Her hair whipped about and her eyes went right over me but missed registering that I was there. I think she must have been pacing in a tight circle, though I could only see most of her head and sometimes a shoulder. Thinking again. Her start and stop pacing had always unsettled me. The lack of pattern suggested she was following inaudible orders from invisible agents minding imaginary obstacles. Neither you nor she knew where her thoughts would take her. Before, anyway. Now whatever she ended up deciding would be my just deserts. We'd ordered the whole cart. What did it matter which was served first? I was different, always sat to think. Kneeled, here, since the rocks had made sitting too hard. A fistful of dandelions knelt there with me, tops seedless now, like bonnets for lizards or salt shaker lids for a leprechaun. No, a single bristle clung to one, though whether she loved me or loved me not was too many questions ago to matter. I stumbled up and was down on the path in seconds, and that's how I left. And this time I did stay gone. There was no more to say. Our story had become so many stories it wasn't a story at all. Maybe the fact is that's everyone's story, but part of mine must be avoiding that fact. By winter I was here, where I met you. And that's not even a story as yet. I like how you're not made of sounds. How my eyes seem to stop at your skin.