At two a.m.

At two a.m.

...

Looking at my mother’s hands tonight,

I see

how they were fidgety as

if they were nervous birds when my father

walked out. Funny.

When I was a child, I thought that love

could

be held, similar to

how coffee gets cold between arguments or

the feeling

of someone's head resting against

yours while riding the subway. But

perhaps I was

wrong; love is more similar to trying to

recall a dream while

being submerged underwater. Outside the window, the streetlight flickers

off

and then back on again. My roommate's

girlfriend is

laughing behind the wall. It

has the sound of someone who

has just fallen

in love, perhaps naive yet dangerous at the

same time. Have they

figured it out? Has she figured out that someday

she

will find him tasteless? Or vice versa;

he will

become a part of her

daily life that eventually, once the

romance fades, he

will perhaps become like breathing, an integral part

of who you are.

Am I overthinking this again? The radiator is chattering

away.

Steam is rising. My tea has gone

bitter and

I still drink it; perhaps

this will be my penance, wondering

if wisdom is

nothing more than a collection of scars, or

maybe I am just

fooling myself into believing in something greater than what

I

really am, just a young man full

of uncertainty with nowhere to go.