what pho doesen’t cure there is no cure for. this is true for hangovers, illness and other general feelings of unwellness. one thing is pho sure though and that is there is no cure for a broken heart. i’m not saying i have one right now but maybe i do. the only person who can break my heart right now is myself… perhaps this is true in all cases of the broken heart.
I find reaching out to someone in the “i saw you”s a true representation of twenty first century romanticism. I read today about a young man on a bus who shared a moment with another man. he cast his feelings to the internet then subsequently the georgia straight in hopes that they will be returned. he asks this person for whom his heart aches to meet him again on the bus next saturday at three.
I picture this man holding this hope close to his heart for the whole week. I see him timing his bus ride exactly to the second and i feel his heart sinking when the bus rolls past the crowded stop, which to him, might as well be empty. this is the hearts spell. these little hopes that hold so much weight in our chests. its like a note in a glass bottle in a calm sea. it drifts slowly, unlikely to reach for whom it is destined. I think in some way we are all doing this. I do it all the time. I’m doing it right now. I did it today when I had spicy beef soup by myself in a restaurant.
i leave school early because i cant stop staring at the beautiful day outside. I walk my usual path home but stop aprubtly at the line in the middle of the busy road that seperates the sun from the shade. I turn around and walk facing the sun.
I walk this charmed thoroughfare only to have the sun disappear behind the tall buildings. I chart a path through ugg boots and coach purses and people yelling into their phones to remain in the days embrace.
I walk with my jacket folded tightly across my chest with a cigarette from a stranger held tightly between my fingers. Wind pulls a tear from my eyes and stretches it across the width of my cheek. I can feel the skin tighten along the flesh that it passes over. I smile.
No matter which route I parse i cant always have the sun to my back. I cant always see my shadow stretch out before me. I must eventually adopt the shade.
with the billions of people on this planet i ponder our singularity. how many others are bewitched by the early spring days? how many others listen to love songs in vietnamese soup restaurants? how many others look for signs of hope in the google autocomplete search inputs?
however unlikely it is that the bottle reaches its destined reader it would be a shame to not cast it to the swell. for ever calm day at sea there is a squall and with any luck at all that squall will push that bottle where it needs to go. and why not? in this rediculous experiment that is life with all its twists and turns there is wonder here. there is a reason sea shells are curved just so and the planets orbit the sun, just so.
but then again perhaps there is not.
truly the romantic and the fool walk the same if not very similar paths…
