Perforation Problems

Losing someone is bad enough The immediate gap The empty places The missing words and hands and– Self I look around me and everything becomes Before or After This was when we were happy This was when we had no idea This was when things went wrong This was when things went on anyway But I think what's worse than the Missing is the Never again The total finality of it all The reminder that everything is leaving Everything is going away Even right now Everything is changing

Ryan Butts was my first boyfriend. Since we were third graders that didn't mean much. I don't think we even spent any time together beyond chasing each other around during recess. But I do remember my hurt feelings when he decided to be boyfriend and girlfriend with my friend Jennifer, instead. Standing atop the wooden castle parapet on the playground at Winterset Elementary School, I yelled down at him, "I don't care what you do, Ryan BUTTS." When we came inside I got a talking-to from my teacher, who told me it wasn't nice to make fun of people's names. Then in seventh grade I "dated" Andrew Thomas. I remember catching him looking at me in social studies and feeling a warm, pleasant anxiety in my stomach, like life suddenly held a whole bunch of possibilities, and I wasn't sure what to do with them. We passed notes back and forth with an intricate coding and folding system. We didn't use names – instead I was a turtle and he was a l...

I should be working this morning – I've got a long list of projects marked ASAP and URGENT with exclamation points – but I'm tired and sleepy and not really feeling much of anything. Also I know these projects are not really ASAP and URGENT. It's not like I'm helping get homeless people off the street or feed starving children. I'm revising copy for websites. So I thought I'd take a moment and try to write a bit. Feeling creative has been hard and writing hasn't come easily lately, even when I take time out to do it. My words don't seem to come out right at the moment. I guess the muscle is getting weak, which is all the more reason to fight my way through it. I spent last week in New York City and had a couple moments, as I usually do in new places, where my fingers itched for a pen. Sitting on the bus from LaGuardia I wanted to describe the man sitting next to me, in his pinstripe pants and wool blazer, a fedora perched on his head as he read John ...