the habit of being

The cold falls in sheets like the rain on our shoulders. The wet Birkenstocks under my toes are like sticky goo shoes with too much soul. Our hair is sopping wet in little snake strings. The mist sandblasts our pale faces, and I don’t really think it could be April. In my mind, it’s us versus a storm from the Arctic.

Nevermind the greyscale buildings. Nevermind the passersby with umbrellas, briefcases, newspapers tucked inside to keep them au courant in the capital. They must know all about the protesters and the cops, the streets blocked off, why her dad gave us places not to go. I don’t know. I’m practically a tourist, a fish. Still I belong, arm linked with this girl from nearby.

My hand in her pocket, hers in mine. We’re shiplike. Tempest tossed but giggling along. Wet and cold, we don’t really know where we go. Look for a museum, an art gallery, something static. We want to look and to be forbidden to touch. We want to gaze, halfway and hard.

All buildings are similar whites and greys, with lines, with squares, heavy things. They are broken up online by startling pictures of skinny girls (whores? princesses?) up high and smiling, or the next huge incarnation of Absolut vodka. Is it Absolute hunger? Absolut lust? Absolut indecision? Absolut silence in the murky city air.

We pass back and forth my dripping Bear Bryant hat, though it won’t do much good for us yet. She says she sobs on that hat now, and I am far away, in the heat, head in the oven on a pillow. It’s not my only soaked-hat story these days.

Are we not still fabric sisters, in the drizzle or icicle queen tears? The purple air? I think I can still smell your hair, in my scarf.

We step into a church with colored windows and drip on the floor. From the foyer, we watch the goings-on inside. Hiding there, that holy hallway, we can’t enter, we’re trapped. How could we dare?

. . .

I’m wearing my new green Sewanee Tigers t-shirt. I had a calzone with spinach for lunch, bagel for breakfast. Jennifer is coming to visit me on the 30th. My fingernails are long. This entry is short. I’m sorry.