If I had known
I would’ve told you I’d been there too
that it’s normal for people like us.
That the fog will eventually burn off
with time, fiction, and whiskey.
We would’ve remembered Hemingway
Van Gogh, Plath, and Wallace
who fought the fine fight for the arts and died nobly—
which would’ve been the second of many stupid things we’d say.
Happiness, after all, is not for people like us.
Clouded eyes see more clearly
than the teeming myopic masses—right?
We would’ve dusted off Ulysses
and found a Hamlet reference to expound
while sipping Jameson with raised pinkies and grins.
Or would it have been the insecurity of gin?
We would’ve recited
the fractured insights of two minds
who were looking at the spectrum
but not the blinding white light.
I would’ve said I
and I and I and I
with a few me, me, mes for good measure.
And we wouldn’t have heard you at all
as you hid from both of us
in plain view.
The sun would’ve climbed over the opines.
The perfect sunrise to end it all.
Two distant gray clouds
for elevated vacuous minds.
A hint of warmth swimming
on the slightest of breezes–
a well-deserved gift from the Muses.
And the blood red horizon forcing
another Monday down our throats.
But we’d agree never to trade nights like this—
the numbered nights of possibility
the fleeting nights of curiosity
the dark nights of inevitability–
for all the wonderment of Xanadu.
The nights that make life worth living.
And for the first time all night
we would have been right.
***
Nick Hertzog is a writer from the Colorado Springs area.
