I have to take time out to explain that this was not a beautiful sunset in the way sunsets are supposed to be beautiful. The postcard photographers, if they had ever dared to stray from the U.Va. campus, would have packed up their equipment and left by now. Times like this made me furious at language. It was the only solution, and yet of course it was no solution at all. This was exactly the purpose poetry was supposed to serve, capturing a moment otherwise elusive, and I, perennially begged to submit to literary magazines, could not write a word.
Writing means creating frames.
Or the story Jeff told me about the boy who tried to kill himself by jumping off of that parking garage, but only broke his legs. Frames were not part of the picture tonight. My life had been compartmentalized for me, and I was not going to allow this moment to fall into the same trap. I wrote nothing. Phil swears he's found used condoms.