the meaning of a word on a beer label

hello all,  i wrote this last summer in a notebook outside a cafe transferred it to the computer and decided to hold onto for awhile.  i let go of this man a long time ago.  and never thought he would provide me more than enough material.  writing and otherwise.  he also made me realize what i really wanted.  and for that i am thankful.  i think this will be the last piece he will be a part of. okay enough reflective words on the past.  without further ado- the meaning of a word on a beer label.  all my thanks always!

As I stand in the aisle, feet planted in the front of the multiple colors bottled with labels and letters spelled out into words, more words, into the word: Parabola. It stands before me. Boxed because its special. My eyes reading the book of beer bottles scanning left and right and left and right-typewriter swinging. Until it stops on the one word I had forgotten until it stands there with its paper colored box and the description underneath-attention beer geeks and this will go fast. And the flashback of the year earlier roams through the maze of my mind and lands on my chest. 


I pause. I pause. And think about the bottle I still have sitting in my fridge. With the same name. The one released in 2010. Sold out but I got one of the last bottles to call my own. I bought it to share. But never did I. It transferred from my old house in noe to soma to inner richmond and back and where it lives and has lived since september in the mission. I had bought this to share with someone who I'd stop seeing more than once, twice to be exact or was it three times, the last being a drift of little to no contact to calmness of the still pond.

So this most recent time and this bottle of beer. When we started again in the causal of coffee and parks and dog watching and playing. This time it was my own investigation that resulted in the meeting. My own curiosity and needing to know he was okay. Because the rumors that touched my ears didn't tell the words I wanted to believe. So I had to do what I needed, what I always felt I should and went into see for myself. The recon of inquisitiveness and instinct. 

He had told me before. People tell you who you are but we are blind and deaf and gullible and have a possible male version case of selective or the i am on my cell phone and can't hear you- hearing intensified in wanting to believe that damaged goods doesn't mean a permanence of forever. We look into the eyes- I look into his eyes and want to believe. Believe in the fairytale of trauma resolved by doing little work. That white lines were once in awhile. That him saying this conversation is over, abruptly, coldly, right now- would stop. That the fact that he wanted to die, he had, all could fade away in my embrace.

In my potential seeing grasping wanting to believe that we all could be different because I was different and I hadn't let the twists and turns of my childhood paint a dark D upon my chest. I had brillo padded and scrubbed and massaged and crossed over and spray painted it to form a S. I worked hard to keep that letter there and showed it more than I should. To anyone who might need it.  I did this again all feeling new with my glistening sparkly S upon my chest. I believed I could save him. Save him from the despair of loneliness while saving myself in companionship. 

But the pull, the tug on the fish line from my heart to his hands upon the pole, the sparkly distraction was just so tempting. Tempting to let that shiny S show again. I didn't want to save him. So I told myself. I wanted to make sure he was okay. Not too skinny. Not too close to the edge. I never thought it through what I would do with my google results of how do you tell someone has a cocaine addiction or might be suicidal? What to do other than see if these rumors are true. 


And if this man who I loved. Even if it wasn't warranted. I had to see if he lay on pieces on the ground, his potato head nose and eyes and lips and hands to feel needing to be put him back together. But with my hands. For me to help him form into completion. Into the real him. The real him he could be. It wasn’t just about him. It was about me. Me feeling I was important. Me feeling indispensable. Me saving others to make it feel better I could never help her. My mother. I guess if I saved enough people it would feel okay giving up on her. Another notch on the superhero belt of humanity might make me feel more alive. Less guilty. More alive.

So our visit at the park gave birth to more. My google searches and my own evaluation resulted in results uncertain. Uncertain I was. I needed to do more research. But objective I couldn't be. He might be broken, broken. Beautifully broken but he was comfort still, the familiarity of him, us, warmed me. The familiarity of him and me and the story of how dysfunction and addiction and missing parents can perfectly end so very differently.  My own fable of my making. 


 The park became phone calls long bubble gum outstretched ones like ones when we were in the thick of our love affair. And for a brief moment, I paused and fell back in not caring about the future but the now. Only the now. So I did what anyone who didn't care for the importance of the future. I had sex with him multiple times and once on backyard swing. But somehow our romp on that swing allowed it to end. Really this time.

He called soaked in worry that I would want to be together and he couldn't give me what I needed. I didn't. Not in a cold callus way but in a way of knowing the truth. I thought it was fun.  I don't regret it. Words falling out of me from my script I had written. I guess I should have thought this through. He would say. Surprised by the swings change in me. I should have thought it through as well. 


Thought about what grabbing onto the shiny lure would mean. Meaning. The word. Parabola. Glistening in the florescent manufactured lights above. It sits there and reminds me of the buying of it in the limbo of a beginning of summer stickiness of the heat wave san francisco summer of before. The accident of the weather and sleeping together and diving into to it again. And the bottle I bought for us to drink together.

And as I stared at the bottle- I remember we never drank it, not together, I never did drink it not even alone. And I think maybe I should buy it. Buy this new version limited edition again. I stare at it the only way you can feel nostalgia for a bottle. For a moment. I stand. And stare. And he is standing next to me again. 


For just a few moments. There was only one choice left. And as I walk away from this bottle brightly light and perfectly packaged- still not knowing what was inside but knowing more than enough. My eyes turn slowly as I span out until it is in the distance of the corner of my eyes. I didn't look back. 


 Until. A few days later when I was shopping I happened upon this aisle again. But this time I wanted to buy it. Maybe. But it was gone. And so was he. It was as if they have never been there. There at all.