dogwood drought

Weather

I know the weather where she is must be sunny. I have to believe that. When I look outside and see the oppressive dull and draping clouds, I cannot wish them on her, even in imagination. I wonder, sometimes, just sometimes, if she looks out on ugly weather and wishes better for me too. I want to feel happy when I think of her, nostalgic or fond, or anything other than the deep pit I feel in my stomach instead. If I had to give it a name, I think I’d choose dread, though I’m not sure. I’m never sure anymore.

It’s been days since we’ve talked. It’s not much, actually counting them out. Thursday. Friday. Saturday. Easy. Living them is a different story. Why is it that time seems to change its pace just to spite those living in it. It seems to me as though it’s dragging each second into minutes, until years have passed in just those few precious days. There’s nothing so cruel as time. And it’s never more cruel than at times like these.

I could call her. I know that. But she could call me too. She won’t. I know that too. So here we sit, not calling. I imagine what I’d say if I did get the nerves to finally call her. I’d probably mess it up. Any declaration of love would become disfigured to the point of becoming ugly small-talk. Yeah, I know how it’d go. She’d say hello, but not just hello. “Hello?” like that, with a question mark, accent dragging on the Ls. I’d say it’s me, just calling...well, just to call. She’d probably laugh at that. A pity laugh, but it’d be a laugh all the same. I’d stutter and um and uh and oh, well, haha. Finally, I imagine, I’d settle on a question. “How’s the weather over there?” God, I can imagine the second of silence, a second that cruel time would stretch well into a minute. It doesn’t matter what she’d reply. No matter what, I can only imagine her living in her desert (and it is hers) in near-miserable levels of sun. And god, I can imagine that. Not a cloud in the sky, and that sky being so bright blue it blinds you just to look at it. 

Maybe it does matter what she’d say. And again that curiosity. Nearly strong enough to push me towards my phone. Nearly. Nearly, but not quite. She’d probably just ask how the weather is for me. And there’s something to imagine too, because I don’t know myself in uncomfortable moments nearly as well as I do in comfortable ones. Would I lie? Would I say, oh it’s fine, fine, how’s your family? Or would I lament to her about the grey clouds and the heavy mist of not quite rain, not quite not rain hanging above and around me? Maybe I’d just say to her. “It’d be better if you were here.” 

And that’d be true enough anyway, even if I’d never say it beyond imagining. I know her, being her, would make the choking overhang of the sky seem near welcoming and it’d make me thankful to the mist hanging in the air, if only because I have the dull stupid hope it might just hide the look I know I’d have in my eyes. I wouldn’t even care that the sky wasn’t blinding brilliant blue or the sun wasn’t beating down harsh enough to make her black hair shine silver. I wouldn’t even care.
But well, that’s all just imagining.