Requervimiento

My throat hurts a little
I hate quishe lorraine
I'm in love with Patrick
and I miss Valancy.

The difference between a poet and a novelist is that the poet tries to say more with less words. The best things I've written have been the shortest, peeling away the dead parts of the language to find the things that trancend. Words as code, as symbols that conjure worlds. Full expression is no expression - you can pin the butterfly, but the flying is lost. Renoir and Degas with their gaudy colors and wide brush strokes show us more about life than any dour hyper-real portraits. They sweep us along with them until we can know what is not shown, know the relations between the girls, know that her shoe is untied even though we can't see the laces. Words are a prison of approximation.

The thing is, I miss Val. I don't mention it because if I say I miss Val now it might fool people into thinking I don't miss her all the times I don't say it. I miss her constantly. I miss her with my nose; I miss her with my hands. I miss her with the bone on the back of my heel. I miss her because I know that I don't ever get her back - not after Japan, and not after Michigan.
And I think that it might be my fault because
I
love
Patrick.