It's the end of the world

Foghorn in the distance from my old friend Julie tonight. People do surprise you sometimes. I feel the nostalgia course through my blood thick and pungent as fenugreek. Who was I then, the girl who wanted to marry the skater boy in the REM video?

It seems, of course, that I did marry him, and that there he stays, riding and riding around that great destroyed house, eyes never on the camera, hair always in his tragic face. It is this tragedy that attracts us, that never leaves them, until they come home from work and stare and stare at the tv, making monumental efforts only to sleep over their buddies' houses after they've had operations, while our mothers are still the ones bringing us soup when we're sick. We are still 14 in our hearts, and no matter how angry we are, we are searching for that slick race of pulse when the boy on the skateboard finally tosses his bangs aside and smiles his half lifted lips, his sad, poker eyes dead at us. We married difficultly.

We still love each other, but we are no longer on the same team, and life is too short to wait and wait and wait for that smile. It is no longer enough reward.