Sleep

"The district sleeps alone tonight."

There's a girl I know in the district who doesn't really sleep. Ever since I saw her, sleep has been different.

1. I've had weird dreams. And I can't shake them.

2. I grind my teeth when I sleep. I feel the jagged friction just before I wake up. It worries me.

3. Bon Iver. Of course, right? "Wash." was in my dreams last night. (Click that link. Listen to that shit.) It's a great song but one that I never really remember listening to in depth. It was in my dreams and consequently in my head this morning, and the song has deeply affected me since. Can't shake it.

4. (This is only tangentially related to sleep, via Bon Iver and "Wash." I listen to it and mix that feeling with a Great Divide beer and can't help but get sentimental. And it always ends up drivel.) I can't shake this feeling of letting people whom I love know I love them. Rye. Paige. Chuck. Leif. Dustin. Mom. Dad. District. Jake. JK. Baars. Juan Jr. S'matty. Nick. Intellectures.com. Mags. Clark. 1030. HiC. Tonk Bucs. All y'alls who'd better know I care.

5. (Sleep stretched to sentimentality, which stretched to this.) I had my best day teaching ever. The kids ended up being better writers at the end of 50 minutes than they were before. I planned the shit out of the lesson. No demerits. A handful of students got that I care about them by the end of the day. It's why I did this.

"ANXIETY" (it read on Greg Kuzma's hat)

The weight of things passed

sits on my chest. I’m thinking fast

of Sufjan songs

of facial hair grown too long

of peaks and pics

of peeps and chicks

of flags in ceilings

of political leanings

(too far left,

to put to death)

of baseball games

of betrayal’s pain

of submarine sandwiches

of gravel ditches

where we almost crashed.

Oh, the weight of things passed.

***

“Are we hipsters, Dave?”

It’s a genuine question.

I’ve been wearing more flannel.

My jeans are tighter, my bike recycled.

Dave pauses.

“We don’t dress enough like hipsters.”

That’s not reassuring.

I don’t smoke American Spirits,

don’t drink Pabst Blue Ribbon,

don’t wear Ray-Ban Wayfarers.

I do like Fleet Foxes

and eat tempeh and seitan.

I buy beets at the farmers’ market.

Dave is silent.

I don’t wait for elaboration.

I change the subject.

***

Renter’s insurance,

a worrier’s assurance.

Ninety-five fifty.

It’s late. Forgive me.

Electronics are covered,

my worries shuttered.

On time or late --

good hands, Allstate.

Above all else

It's been months, actually. More than a year. I left her on New Year's Day, 2010. She got a boyfriend two weeks after I left. She filed the papers almost exactly a year ago.

Then, at Christmas, she talks about fixing everything. We've got two kids, so I sort of open up. She came out here a couple weeks ago. She interviewed for a job. We got too close. Too, too close.

Today, she writes. Turning the job down. Staying in Omaha. Above all else, I feel stupid for letting her get to me.

Above all else, I feel like I had one chance, and it's gone.