Reading Bukowski Online.

I'm reading some random bits of Bukowksi I've found online.
Vaguely, it reminds me of the short period of time when
I could do a freestyle sort of poetry
at the poor excuse for a coffee house my
school would attempt to throw together.

I thought I could.
That's the beauty of being 16 and crazy.
You are always convinced you will know what to say when the time comes.

Maybe if the timing had been different;
if I had a poor excuse for a coffee house now;
or if 16 year olds did online dating, clicking profile after profile- sometimes intrigued, or sometimes horrified, often both...
I would speak of yesterday morning.


How I had thought I was being suffocated, and was certain all plans for the day were catalysts toward certain doom.

I could draw a path from one point to the next:
arriving at the front of the restaurant and waiting in an over stuffed chair, my unease growing as I inch toward the decision to simply leave.

feeling the heat in my face as I admitted [first to myself, then eventually to my date via text] that the negative bits of me were making negative bits of everything else. That maybe I had acted somewhat rash. That maybe I should turn back around and try again.

recalling how, as we walked to his car afterward, I kept drifting toward him on the side walk, into the space in front of his shoulder. How we eventually couldn't walk side by side properly, but sort of weaved with the ebb and flow of conversation: occasionally colliding as engagement became dramatic, floating into slight overlap as it calmed again.

how he strummed an imaginary instrument just above my knee while singing and yelling Nirvana, the sun roof open to let out the vocal strains, as he drove me home.

how, after he kissed my cheek good bye and I got out, he rolled down the window, quieted the music and remarked "I love how you slam doors".