Sometimes you stop paying attention, distracted by the deadlines and all the assholes on the freeway, rainstorms and bad meals, and, next thing you know, you’ve had the same three pair of blue jeans for twenty-something years. A couple of unimpressive slacks and some scuffed shoes, black pair and a brown, and a small mess of saggy socks hide rumpled in the bureau drawers or hang crooked in the closet with a few short sleeves and a few long, two cracked leather belts, the stitching frayed. You don’t remember where you got any of it, or the handful of faded pocket tees stained with grease you cannot recall. Tucked back behind somewhere are a couple of neglected hats, maybe a glove or two, a scarf. All the seams look tired, loose threads, buttons missing here and there, a few broken by cleaners that closed down years ago. Standing there sleepy, up too late again, you try to recall one occasion and what you wore. It had to be this stuff, every time. Some combination of these weary vestments have been with you for longer than you can remember, which isn’t saying much. Where were you yesterday? Where did you go, and why? Was it that shirt or this other? A hat? Like a shrug that tells your life story, you let the thought go and throw your jeans and undershirt over the chair, shambling off to the unmade bed, past the socks in the bathroom floor. Asleep at once, you dream into that threadbare pillow case places that never were, people mashed together in something that’s half the church you went to as a kid and half that factory with the giant vat of acid that spit when you threw stuff in it, stuff that wasn’t yours to destroy, in a place you shouldn’t have been. There’s a girl you haven’t seen in ten years and never said two words to asking you where you got the jacket. She’s wearing a white dress with little blue flowers. “Not sure,” you reply.
Hello, friends. I trust you're well, and well dressed as well. Well, well, well.
Later. Love.
