Summer Mismeeting
It’s the summer of twenty twenty-two,
and we mismet each other.
Partners? We were never partners.
We were clumsy and unfortunate enough
to find each other
and fool each other
for a handful of time that won’t return.
And I, in my pettiness and foolishness,
took from you what was most precious.
And I, in my loneliness and insecurity,
took your reins and made you a pack animal,
to carry the weight of my soul
and sink into the mud of lives poorly lived.
This isn’t romance. It isn’t drama.
It doesn’t fit in matinees,
or in Vancouver bookstores.
It has no happy ending. It isn’t the Before trilogy.
It’s not minimalist. it’s absurd, it’s unreal.
It’s error a thousand times over, and error is what it is.
It’s a summer mismeeting,
a mismeeting of people and their things.
And those things are petty and foul.
And those people are petty and foul.
And you are foul. Your soul is foul.
And I am worse. My soul is worse.
And after writing this, I cry so much.
My soul cries so much.
The tears slide across the floor of apartment 708.
The neighbors below complain loudly,
then, more quietly, feel sorry for me.
And you, do you feel sorry for me?
I do. I feel terribly sorry for you.
And I hope the bile of life slowly spoils,
and that the body I inhabit withers with it.
And that no one ever pities me again.
And that I never again pity anyone.
And that I never again pity you.
– Painting: Kimberly Schultz