Maybe Next Time

I wanted to write a story about hanging around, about sitting around, about walking around.

I wanted to write a story about the stars and the sky and the moon and the trees, and everyone who lived in all of those places.

I wanted to write a story about the deep blue sea.

I wanted to write a story, just to see what it would feel like.

I wanted to write a story about someone who was born crazy and stayed crazy, whom everyone was afraid of and no one quite understood, and whose mischief was in no way endearing.

I did not want to write a story about anyone’s childhood.

I wanted to write a story about all the different kinds of love. Maybe.

I wanted to write a story that made me cry.

I wanted to write a story that made you cry, too.

I wanted to write a story that curled up inside you and promised to always stay with you, never to let you go no matter how many times you told yourself that the story was only a story.

I wanted to write a story that really was only a story.

I wanted to write a story about swimming in the pool with my best friend.

I wanted to write a story about failure, in all its depth and breadth, in all its manifestations, and I wanted to end it on some sort of happy note.

I wanted to write a story about the end of the world but then I thought that would kind of make me sad.

I wanted to write a story about someone even I thought was maybe really real, even though I knew I’d made that person up; like I would wonder if the story was a story was actually about someone that I’d met but couldn’t remember, and if the story wasn’t so much a story but more an accurate recording of certain intriguing facts.

I wanted to write a story that made me laugh.

I wanted to write a story that made you laugh, too.

I wanted to write a story that didn’t make such obvious use of opposites like the abovementioned laugh/cry, like, hello, we get it, you can do both at the same time, in the same story.

I wanted to write a story that would crawl out of the overcoat and stretch its wings and break free and run away across the world all the way to the horizon.

I wanted to write a story that had all sorts of secret clues in it.

I wanted to write a story that I would want to read.

I wanted to write a story, all day and all night I’ve been wanting to write a story, so I put on my pajamas and lighted a fire and sat down to my laptop and what came out instead was this.