On the patio, this is the view from the bar on my block. When I drink and get crazy, this is my muse. I fall asleep to the sound of waves breaking.
Friends, lovers, please.
Come and fucking visit me.
I am only 4800 km's closer to you, now.
That's close.
-Sid
xoxo
The rudder wouldn't move at all in the shoals. The keel skipped over them and I knew them by name. I would have gone aloft to see them out but I didn't want to tip her, even though she was keel stepped. Instead I leaned off the anchor pocket and put weight sea-side, and as she swung about, I caught the rigging and shook out the reefed sail. The wind blew into it and we were free.
I hated docking not because my skill was poor, not just because my skill was poor, but I hated docking because I left her there; with only the tides to play on.
The walk from the dock to the house was lonely until I opened the door and there was Thomas. Thomas the gray. A fine cat. Thomas and I would read the mail together, me with my whiskey and he with my heart-beat, as he lay on my chest while I opened the envelopes and read aloud, by lantern: "Dear Mr. Sid Hart, ...".
I had found old Tom one day while walking the streets, I bought him a can of tuna and we became fast friends. Thomas was a good and fine gray cat. When the wind blew hard and the rain made it so that you couldn't see outside Thomas would hide in the nook between me and the sofa.
Once I got a letter from you and after all these years I couldn't bear to open it. I knew what it said already. I could tell from the way the stamp was affixed, sloppy and crooked. Like you.
I am a man of the mast, now. I am sheltered in the lee, unfettered by the misdeeds of others.
My ship has no room for that cargo, even the lazarette is full.
These days, it's me, Thomas the gray, the house at the shore and the ship at the sea.
That is all I am, all I ever want to be: a sailor with a gray cat to whom I can read aloud after docking my ketch and leaving her deck with heavy heart.
How do I tell you that I love you?
How the fuck do I do it?
I have held you close and whispered sweet things, and how do I tell you
that
I love you.
I love everything about you.
I have dreamed of a woman like you, but I failed.
I have wept for a woman like you, and I wailed.
But, and yes, you are everything I have ever wanted in a woman who sighs, aloud.
I love you, make me a man, again.
Light my sails and heed my calls to stern, we are the same and good god you are the most beautiful ship I have ever seen in my life; you angel.
I will wait until you share a drink with me.
Darlin'.
Oh Nellie, with your mizzen mast to the sky.
My heart of darkness.
Let's sail.
I think I have been sleeping. Maybe for a long time, even. I have no recollection as to how I came to be asleep, but I have awoken from this foggy prison, once for certain. Other than that time, though, it seems like twice, maybe more, I don't know.
But once for certain.
The light hit me first and the mountains levelled. My vision was lucid and I felt everything.
The flat-land felt good. I was waking up.
When she first touched my face, that nurse, that line-angel, she brought me to.
She bade me wash the sleep from my eyes and see. The river was cold and I just smoked.
And that's when I knew I was awake that one time. Once.
She spoke to me of lines and showed me love.
A line. The line.
I remember kissing her and now the fog begins to set and I just wanted to tell you once before it settles on my soul that I can't remember how long I have been asleep but I remember, oh god do I remember, that one time when I was certain that I was a-fucking-wake, certain that I had left the coma.
But it comes, the sleep. Again.
I'll dream of my lover, then, my nurse with the supreme line.
-Sid
xoxoxoxo
