nothings and sweet nothings

"thus the world, like a bitter coquette, spurs our attempts to give ourselves to her wholly."

the lilac buds have opened. you are right; they smell the strongest at dusk. the smell is something so complete, so nostalgic, a sweeping but vague memory that encompasses things as large as "adolescence" and "love" and "remorse."

today i rode my bike to chocolate lake, then on to tea lake. i am not making these names up. in these parts of the world, they name the lakes for the nicest things because they are the nicest places. in these parts, good things are symbiotic, rather than mutually exclusive. (or, at least, one can hope.) m. & i went swimming in chocolate, feeling our hearts become cold heavy things in the ice-water and then thaw so quickly as we opened our arms to the sun. water beads on shoulders, freckles. emptied then refilled. later, when c. jumped into tea lake, after hiking through the ferns and dappled light, his body looked like it was covered in rust

you tell me all our interactions are important; i tell you i feel light and then we part, grateful. you tell me i'm lovely and i think we're both a little fearful about what we have to offer, what chances our offerings have of being wholly received: the saccharine you spurn is only hopeful, and we have acknowledged that in some languages the verbs "hope" and "wait" share the same word. only on the way to the lake, we talk, smile, open; saying nothing, drinking slushies at the side of the road.