Fiction Into Truth and Truth Into Longing

*Train tracks*

"...are you busy?"

(An old man sits next to me to read Miranda to a near-deaf ear)

I mostly stare at people to get a feel for what they might look like when they grow old. Those girls from back in high school don't seem so pretty now. The people I dated in college either have kids or faces that sag with the clocking of late paychecks and extended work hours.

I saw it coming. I braced for it, saw it come into play. Fiction into truth, truth into longing, I look at you and I see an older face in myself. Our faces, our mirrors. I could remember things, moving forward, never looking back. I don't see an old face in you. I only see us older. I say this because you are older but this is before and past that.

*Station 19 announces the arrival of the Miranda Express.*

"This is my stop. Do you have a couple of minutes to spare?"

"You'll miss your train."

"The trains won't miss me."

"The trains won't miss you, I will."

Throbbing like the pulse in a tense swell, I'm as genderless to myself as you are ageless to me. I know you understand. Your body says so, don't hesitate to speak. We both know this. We know this well. Fiction into truth and truth into longing, I'm not hard-pressed to be true to you.

Yes, but shit, I'm nervous. Nervous as I've always been around you; as close to divinity as a godless spirit is to rupture, the flesh as witness with the tip of your tongue as the rapture. This (you) is (are) timeless.

Quiet in a parked car, the humming of amplified diesel engines set the sound to the same stretch of time we refuse to walk in. You are the quiet. My face remains parked. For all the places we've ever lived in, I found truth in the spaces of longing. I stay because I found you in this longing. I stay because I found you.

Fiction into truth and truth into longing, park the car by the side of the road.

The Loveless Disconnect

*Static*

(They stare blankly at the quiet Earth below)

With lingering transmissions inked in the movements of yearning, we tilted our heads skyward to bask in the terminal glimmer of long-dead stars. They were there somewhere, at least the traces of them were; watching us past the closing blink to their waking lives. I wonder how small we must've looked from up there. Sometimes, I wonder.

*Static*

(She peels back the curtain to find pieces of Gliese in her hair)

Do dead stars sleep like we do? “Do they?”, you asked. I had no answers. We never slept to dream of the heavens, neither did the heavens bend (or break) to sleep and dream of us. They lie perfectly still.

“...but you lied.”

“We lie perfectly still.”

She sat on the grassy knoll behind the old station, waiting for trains just like we used to when we were children. It felt like home. These eyes (her eyes), were a stellarium for this patch of earth. They took me places. They took me elsewhere.

“When the trains pass, you'll remember me. When I pass, remember us.”

“...but I remember darkness.”

“Only when I think of you.”

*Static*