winter nostalgia

it's strange how sometimes the simplest image can evoke intricate emotions, sharp remembrances, and clear memories.

the juxtaposition of simple and complex in one instant is hard to contain; i feel opposite edges of my soul pulling in their own directions. i don't know how to stay whole in this.

the smell of your shoulder ||
your breath on my hair ||
red light from the city below ||

winter drive || bird and bloke

sometimes i think i take my independence for granted. other times i shoot like a zephyr down the highway and i'm overtaken by the yearning not to drive myself everywhere, but to be driven. to sit back in the passenger seat, close my eyes, and let the street lights draw headbands across my forehead. to trust that someone else is going to get me there. to be considered precious cargo. to be important enough to someone that he might go out of his way to pick me up just so we could have that time, that space, that travel enclosed together, moving through but also apart from the rest of the world.

i'm pretty content providing for and taking care of myself, but i have to admit that after this long, sometimes i do wish to be taken care of. i see my friends wearing their spouses' love every day without a second thought and wonder if they realize how fine and rare that garment really is. how comforting it must be to know without thinking that you always have a home base at any gathering you may attend; there is always someone to stay in with while everyone else ventures out on a friday night. it's no longer you and then the rest of the world; there's someone on your side. there's someone that would choose you. that would buckle you in and hold your hand and turn on the defroster and drive carefully, just because it's you next to him.

|| i remember
|| a distant dream
|| a feeling like this
|| . . .