They met under the palm tree. The sunlight danced along the sand, under their feet. They laughed. They cried. For this was their last day together. She wanted more time. He wanted to marry her and take her away, to another island.
But they could not. They wanted to. But they could not. Their were too many obligations. Children. Jobs. Life. Their time together held this all together, allowed them to continue on. This memory, under the palm tree, here at the beach would allow them to go on.
Until the next time they met.

You’re a good kid. I watched you grow up and you felt the need to show off and that was a good thing. You provided endless hours of entertainment.
Now you are married, with children. Now your children are showing off.
More entertainment.

I won’t run after you. Mainly because I am not fast enough. I’ve trained in the past, for you. But the gain is so fleeting. For I can speed up and catch up to you. But what’s the point? By the time I catch up to you, I am too tired to talk to you.
Not that you’re interested in what I have to say. You claim you are. You remember that I don’t like wicker. You repeat my one-time phrase of “Baderp, baderp.”

My legs are cramping. Sorry, I know we might be on the verge of something Big but I’m clutching my chest and I stumble off into the bushes.
I am now alone and feel grateful. At least now I can catch my breath and think of an alternative to you.

There’s always masturbation, there, in the bushes. It’s easier this way, pleasuring myself, believe me, no matter what the experts say. Being alone with pleasure is better because it happens sooner and it takes less effort.
“You are so lazy,” someone says as they run by me. They run by so fast, so you can’t see who exactly has called you lazy.

So you laugh and point at them. Off they run, to please others.
Good luck, you call back.
They can’t hear you. They are listening to their music.

But he would not. He told me to take off my clothes first. But I would not. We stood there like idiots as the rain poured on us. We should have gone into the barn, for then we might have taken each others instructions.
But out here, no one was willing to take the chance.

It never occurred to the little girl that her wayward parents would be her undoing. Often, she caught her mother and father arguing over grass cuttings and garments and even saw them threaten to divorce each other over a television show.
She tried to find ways to put a stop to their battles. When she opened her mouth to say something, they always looked at her in a strange way as if confused by her concern.
“Your mother and I are just having a discussion,” her father said.
“Your father and I are not arguing,” her mother said.
The little girl returned that strange look of theirs with one of her own.

Everyone wore a tie to gym I had just finished playing tackle football on the basketball court. I felt powerful. And then the girls walked in, dressed up. And then I realized I was wearing a sport coat. So were the other guys.
It wasn’t a prom. I don’t know what it was.
But it wasn’t a prom

I can’t seem to do things the way other people do them. I do things wrong.
So, take me away in handcuffs.
Uh-oh. I’m being taken away in handcuffs.

ruch-rustle
millstone
eastern seaboard
rangy
trousseau dress
self-vaunting
flue
thought leader
fenestration
syntax

Quiet has a pulse. Something breathes it. Something pushes forward.

Quiet is loud and encroaching.

Listen to the quiet. Find out what it wants. It’s the same as what you want.

He gathered the stones, shined them, made them beautiful.  In response, they sang to him. The lyrics tore at him. Such words of comfort, love, and even adventure. He wrote down the lyrics, committed them to memory, then later as he got older to his whole way of life. It seemed soon those words would match a woman. And eventually they did. She appeared in the fog one morning, her voice matching the voice of the stones. She sang  tantalizingly. They spilled over him and he fell to the floor, his hand releasing the jewels. Which had once been stones.
He fell at the woman’s feet.