What if I lost my direction?
What if I lost sense of time?
What if I nursed this infection?
Maybe the worst is behind
-Barenaked Ladies

i used to

thats a phrase that i seem to be using more and more. there are so many things i seem to have left behind. my own self included.

*****

i stood at the edge of the pool, looking down into the water. i felt like jumping in. i just wanted to let loose and do something crazy. but as i've done so many times before, i suppressed myself, and walked away.

i went back into the sala and lay down on the couch. i draped my arm over my eyes and attempted to sleep, to fall back into the space of my subconscious, both light and dark.

but paolo came in from the dining room. through the door, i could hear the laughter of my parents and their friends. it was silenced when he closed the door again. he settled into an armchair, raising his hand at me. i sat up and slipped on my glasses, eyeing him. he was much older than me, but he didnt look it.

we talked.

he had just gotten home recently after spending four years in the states. he was still readjusting to being back, both physically and emotionally. i mostly just nodded my head. i'd never been close to the guy, though our fathers have been best friends since way before either of us can remember. but there we were, having probably the first actual real conversation with each other.

i remembered visiting his brother, nicky, in the hospital last december. two days before chirstmas, and the guy was shot in the chest. twice. by a stupid security guard. stupid. my eyes wandered to the door of the bedroom, where he was napping. he still had one bullet in him.

i slapped paolo's hand as we left.
"give it time. hang in there."