basic personal protective equipment

Noah says that we have known each other for generations upon generations and somehow we always mess things up between us. This is a shivery whispered exhale in my ear. The little hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Noah says that it's like another chance; this time we're here to finally get it right. He's going to buy a cabin the woods and he's going to spend cold winter mornings chopping wood for the fireplace to keep me warm. My mouth is laughing and telling him he's crazy but inside myself I think that I might believe him.

I don't believe him because he's right. I believe him because my heart does that too when it feels that momentary flash of recognition of oneself in another, that moment when it is briefly heard through the din. It makes me breathless. I ask him if he says this to everyone. He says no. He's not lying. He means what he says. He just doesn't know that his heart will wake up in six days with all these things turned inside out.

He pulls my arm too hard when he tries to show me how to skate along the apex of his street -already leaving marks on me the first night we meet and I am already praying they never fade.

We walk from downtown to his place, the city lights growing further apart as we climb those endless stairs. I'm trying not to breathe hard. I don't want him to see that I'm having trouble keeping up with him and I don't want him to see that I'm afraid of him. He's the tallest man I've ever known. When he kisses me he stands on his knees and wraps his arms around me, still taller that me in this position, but now I can see his eyes. His eyes are dark and he looks haunted. I've convinced myself by now that he has important secrets that I need.

When we arrive at his house, his dog finds a comfortable spot on my lap and keeps me pinned beneath him. He isn't a small dog, nor a particularly friendly one, Noah tells me. It's a sign. Digby loves you. Digby wants to lick my face. It doesn't bother me but Noah stops him. She's mine. I'm not sure this is true but it starts to seem possible.

The next night it is cold outside. August blows a hint of autumn and I sit outside on a bus bench, not waiting for a bus but just waiting. C is beside me. She talks of the emotional faucet inside that can be turned on and off at will. Can you really do that? I ask her and suddenly Noah floats by me with his friend behind him. -for six blocks- he says as he goes past and I feel as though he was answering my question. The absurdity of a thirty year old man on a skateboard is lost on me for a few more days. I can turn off the feelings for six more blocks at least. It always seems to be nighttime.

Now I have fantasies of taking the axe that was referred to in the woodchopping dream and burying it in the side of the Hillhurt house in the middle of the cast party or ultimate frisbee games. I imagine staggering into LifeSport under the influence of vodka and openly stealing a bicycle just to make you chase me. I wish I'd spent the night with Digby. I bleakly watch the bruise on my wrist heal. Time's up for this lifetime.

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