We are in my bed in the old place on King Street. The one that overlooked the intersection where I first saw Jordyn, years before we ever met, loping along looking down at the side walk long hair obscuring his face, carrying his guitar in a soft case. Jo was playing synth in Weaponized State at the time, a tight five piece that was on the 80’s rebound long before anybody else thought that it was cool. I was a zero waiter at this Italian bistro downtown, trying to be a private genius of the mixtape bedroom recording with a sparse collection of pedals and second hand instruments. It was a joyless bohemian existence except for Jo. At night in bed with her head on my chest, my arm around her, the world would recede. - what do you want Buster? - you mean besides a million dollars and a tub of ice cream? - yes, besides that. - I want to see things with you for the first time like we’re on the frontier, like we’re explorers and we discover something totally new. - I hope that we’d be some place warm. I don’t want to go to some place boring and cold like the arctic, like that last story that you told about us finding a lost civilization under the ice. - I’m only going to take you to warm places, Jo. - like Santa Monica? I want to go to California. I want to drive thru the hills. I want to see the desert. - I’ll take you to Santa Monica and we’ll swim in the ocean just like your favourite song. - it’s not my favourite song, you know that. - I know. - buster, what do you think about when we make love? And don’t say nothing. Tell me. - I think about you dancing in your long brown skirt, braless in your red top. I think about how free you are when you dance and how happy you are. The way that you move is like the best poem ever written. It’s better than poetry. I think about how you looked in your sun hat on that patio the day we met. Your eyes, how much joy and mischief they have. I think about you. You’re like a mainline of pure beauty. You’re too good for me. - don’t say that. I’m here. This is where I want to be. | image @sarashakeel