Those I Used to KnowWho KnewMe by Andrei Guruianu Today I combed back the pretty clouds of summer just to find out they were not my friends. The chatter was empty and meaningless but the lipstick was not. We stood at night before a three-piece mirror that would break us apart and make us whole again; make us in turn the loneliest of men. We knew what it meant despite a pouring dark that soaked us to the bone. And now someone’s got us up his sleeve again this year. Someone always does. We are the spades or hearts in a pity hand, just enough for a couch on credit. As is. Just enough to take your darling out for a good time and forget that you can be everything but in control. As promised from the day we knew a promise could be broken. And when you finally get used to it they will come around and mess with the color scheme. Black T-shirts with old Soviet propaganda peddled at a New York market stall. The art of hammer and sickle. A seller puts a tear in the otherwise stern eye and looks at you with that fresh twist of nostalgia—the oldest trick in the book. And isn’t it always like that when some years have passed? You watch an old man dying on a rainy afternoon as he looks out through the open window. The smell of the orchard. That village taste behind the curtain of a million drops lined up like orphans with their eyes against the soft horizon of a new age. And what everyone seems to remember from this picture are the apples. Iconic sheen of green. That at the end, before the credits roll too fast over his grave, the old man appears happy. Something to talk about inside the car on the way home. More chatter and the smear of blush on your left cheek. theMeadow 41
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