Sir?

When the days are warm everyone sheds a layer of clothes.

As I'm leaving work,

M: Have a good weekend x.
L: You too sir.
M: (As I walk out the door) Did she just call me sir? Now, did she call me sir because she doesn't know my name? Was it a kind of cultural barrier thing where you call your supervisor sir just because? Shouldn't she know my name by now? Who calls someone sir? Did she actually say sir? or did I hear her wrong? Is this beard I've been growing just making me look older? Maybe she said, "You too suh." No wait, that doesn't make sense. Why the heck would she say suh? Do I look like a sir?

I do not believe in words. I believe they are the pale ghosts that we use to haunt the liminal spaces of this unreality. Sitting in front of the ocean at night is not knowing. When I sit in front of the ocean I am often scared. I do not use words like liminality. We are all between things.

M: (Holding open door for a guy entering our building)
G: Oh, thanks dude.
M: (Did he just call me dude? Is it because I'm wearing shorts now? Do I look younger? Maybe I should wear shorts to work? Why are their parenthesis around this but not around the previous section in which I was also clearly just thinking? Can I allow myself to ignore the fact that the guy was clearly balding? Despite that, I think he was younger than me. He was definitely younger than me. But what kind of a douche says thanks dude to someone for holding a door. Wouldn't I have just said thanks? Is it any less douchey that my go to term in that situation is man? Thanks man. Probably not. Unless the person holding open the door is experiencing gender confusion).

"I miss living near the ocean because it reminds you of how small your problems are."

In the fall, when it is still warm, I often forget to look at the leaves changing colors, scuttling along the street, spinning in the wheel wells of the buses that glide by. I do not look at the sky, some hue of light eighties jeans, partially obscured by a few islands of clouds. I do not see any shapes in the clouds. I see things that obscure the sun. I walk along the sidewalk listening to music and thinking about myself. About something I've said or done, or how I look or whether I should be listening to a particular song or if I should download a podcast. I stress about not listening to podcasts. I wonder if my shirt is too wrinkled to be wearing to work. I wonder if I walk too much on the outside of my feet. I attempt to walk on the inside of my feet. The sky, in all its glory, needn't exist.

I look at the drivers as I cross the street and wave to them in thanks. I wonder if other people notice me waving. Observation always changes the actions of the subject. At lunch, I eat outside the library. I look up every time someone walks by breaking the flow of my reading. I want to close my eyes and feel the sun warm my skin. I want to walk back into the library on fire. I keep my eyes open. You never know who could be watching.

When I write I miss all of the important things. I cannot create the fall of artificial light across her brow softened in sleep. I can merely play with words until I sleep without saying a damn thing.

In the morning, I awake with regrets about the smallest things. The morning is for regrets. The night is for rain streaked windows and the lights in other apartments going dark.