Saint Louis, Missouri
October 2006

The air was crisp and crackling with the uncertainty of winter. Frost jeweled the windows and the heater roared with resentment. A scarf had swallowed my head, allowing only feral hairs to jut out like springs of parsley. Your knuckles were glowing with redness and I could see the steam rising from your mug like silent ghosts. I should have been in French class, there was a quiz and I’d spent most of the night sprawled on your floor, studying. I shouldn’t have still been there, my back against a framed Barry Manilow and my foot brushing the lens of a Nikon D3. But it was cold and the cocoa was melting away layers of black and white and replacing it with brilliant splashes of cerulean. The cream swirled apart the cocoa and created ringlets around the edge of your cup and you said if I looked closely I could make out the Greek Isles, or possibly half a lawn chair. As you reached over to adjust the scarf, I noticed a smear in place of where my top five songs had been scribbled onto your hand. The ink had seeped into the pores and created a network of constellations.

I looked at you. And you looked at nothing, as you often do. The wind howled at a frequency audible only to cats and the sky was turning the kind of eager blue that announces itself trapped between twilight and dawn. I closed my eyes and imagined you as a tangible translation to everything foreign and unknowable. The words played like a broken record, skipping at all the right parts: Vivant Vivant Vivant!

• BROWSE / IN TIMELINE
• « “Teenage Love Song” — Rilo Kiley
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• BROWSE / IN Songblog
• « “Teenage Love Song” — Rilo Kiley
• » “Calender Girl” — Stars