Stephanie Heit

We were having a discussion inside my parked car. I liked talking inside cars. There was
something about the containment or confinement of held space, parallel gaze out the
windshield due to the seats, a limited repertoire of gestures which hopefully didn't
include the opening of a door. We never resolved much inside that old Camry, but a lot
got said.
"I don't remember this here."
"Maybe we've made it up."
But the rootbeer float was real. Along with the fries whose platter I wrote i love you on
in ketchup since... well, because I did.

VI.

The lamp's craned neck adjusted by his hand. Long black curls in front of his face. He
was reading. I had been asleep, but an extra loud turn of a page awakened me or whatever
wakes the sleeping at 4 am. I never asked what he was reading. My books, not his, as if
words had ownership, were sprawled in a spiral as if on display next to the bed.

VII.

In the morning I went to technique class - did plies, stretched hamstrings, carved space
with a twist of arm.

VIII.

Fade out of ___. I haven't named him. But this was anyone walking away then toward,
undecided while I was fixed like a compass dial in relation to where I guessed he was since
words...
Yes, there was lots of silence then.

IX.

A lot of our relationship was about words. Definitions. Nuances in language. My voice
raised, synonym for me screaming. Portraits between lines of a story (pause) Well, I
wouldn't have written it this way. But we haven't reached the beginning. DIA bathroom
stall. Watching myself from the outside as if I was Juliette Binoche in Blue. I wanted to be
beautiful, like her, while I cried. Him on a plane to New York. The battle with
depression or whatever it became diagnosed as, while I stared and saw myself: mother,
lover, shrink, best friend. The distance, irretrievable.

X.

Breakup letter I wrote before San Francisco after graduation. My call last week to say I'd
found the out-of-print Bonnefoy book and currently had it in my hands.

XI.

I only know what came before.

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