It’s dusk and you have your head in your hands and your long, curly yellow hair spilling over your fingers. I can’t say for certain you’re crying, but why else would you be sitting on your front stoop at dusk with your head in your hands if something terrible hadn’t happened? Not because you like to watch the bats. It’s a nice evening, nice to enjoy outside on the stoop in the fresh air, but not with a cigarette in your other hand when I’ve never even seen you smoke before. Let me tell you something. Once or twice after something terrible happened I’ve stared at myself in the mirror, weeping uncontrollably, and for just a moment or two imagined myself split in two. One part of me is weeping uncontrollably and the other part looks at myself weeping uncontrollably and says, “Look at yourself! You’re weeping uncontrollably!” At these moments I’m both unable to stop weeping and unable to look away. So maybe it’s like that with you. Only instead of a mirror there’s someone staring at you from inside their own apartment and that person is me.

Originally published June 8, 2015 in Spry Literary Journal, Issue 6.

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