She met this Freddy in this way:
She met Freddy in spring while it was wet and dark, and teenagers slink inside for bong hits, beer and the Jefferson’s on Nick at Night.
Later, Freddy taught her things that only Freddy would teach. She could love his jaw line and the bend of his shoulders, long strides and longer pulls on cigarettes, with little else, except for the poetic image of it.

He had a wide mouth full of sharp jagged teeth that he would take out sometimes as an icebreaker at parties. Eyes sunk deep back, set in cynicism.
He moved with a great deal of confidence inside lanky unassuming limbs, fast to fury, quick to redeem their slightness.
He was poorly delivered poetry.
He was goofy on a good day.
And he pounded the clay with a boney teenage fist.
Angry with everyone else, his bite was returned with the same fervor. Infuriated.

This is only the start, you see, only so important because the seed was spit into damp, rich soil. She was fourteen. Maybe thirteen. And Freddy spit it out. It was not supposed to be that way. But she managed to hold up under the pressure, and in its youth it was nothing but a blessing with music and butterflies, Marlboro lights, riding shotgun, cherry blossoms and cicadas.

It had less to do with Freddy’s mouth and more to do with his projection.

Freddy has now become an amalgam of foreign inspirations, people that have been known to lie, and tragic inevitability. Always contained within the same fond sweetness. She is followed everywhere by this stooped figure.

But this is not poetry; this is real…maybe the other way around.
It doesn’t give a damn really, even if you do.

But somewhere in a deep sleep, behind her, are sharp fast fistfights. On the floor, broken bits of bone and teeth, old dogs pissing on the carpet in an old brothel covered in old flags. And the sun comes in red on the cracked black and white linoleum floor. In the company of hairy women.

These guys, they’re too big for the worlds that we live in.
Too fragile to touch.
All blue eyed, and jaw boned and teeth.

A type of grown up version of herself, fiddling with the fractured images of her, composed of every Freddy and every sidewalk. She gets coated in the warm reassurances of foreign substances, not all the time, just enough to get the feeling out. Freddy’s come and go, always coming, always going. But who planted you? And who replaces your Freddy when he doesn’t come home at night?

It is here, she says: I am not afraid of you.
It was always a pleasant send off. Just short of something.

The last time she saw them: in the local bodega, on the train platform, cars in drive way, sitting on the stoop, behind Con Ed, boreum ave, the 6 train, by the water, on the corner by the pay phone of 8 and 1, 14th street, 2nd and 2nd. There was a lot of unknowing in all of this. It was never intentional.

Now she’ll try to consume it in vain before any one has the chance to claim sanctuary. It was never said for intellect or self hate. (Just a thing, as far as I can tell.)

I can’t feel sorry for her. I don’t want to. But she can make it hard, for all of us really.

To her benefit, they still talk. But for me, it makes it a harder story to tell.

…Until Freddy comes home again, and this reunion is not full of just love, but bad poetry, pandering sweetly, as memories grow hair. She loves them when they call out her name while everyone else looks at their feet.

She is shocked that he would appear, as the thought congealed, like some kind of magic trick that usually never works.
Only now what? So much huffing and puffing and still no place to invite you back to. No cookies or tea?
It’s all right though, I put it on for me anyway, and I can take a joke, just don’t press too hard.
For all my prior poetic posturing, indeed, it was only the mouth I would recognize. His bite, returned.
Sit down and breathe, someplace else. Hide your hands.
Wish that this had somehow gone another way, in spite of it all.
Wish that so much bone had not grown, still here as children.
Smells like some kind of an ex boyfriend you picked up off the streets. Looks like it too. Looks like it stuck.
Looks like she had the right of way the whole damn time, and what could I possibly tell you about myself right now? What is it that you would really like to know?

It’s a good place to grow up.
That’s all.
It’s just a good place to grow up.
Inspired.

I keep him, them, both of them, longer as ghosts.
It should never be such a surprise. But what the hell am I supposed to do with all this food tomorrow?
It was the way he moved. I love the way he moves. Hollering out car widows.

She would greet Freddy in this way: in springtime, the same time. She would not see him until he was already there, not really sure who she is running to, not thinking for a moment that this time it really would be him. Slunk away in twenty something, a little worse for the wear.

I can see that you love me. Not in the hard, dull way, just enough to keep this going.

Moving as a machine. I can love back too. We’re all just still flunking out of something, hiding your jealousy as well as I hide my admiration. Maybe too well…so much after so long to speak to something, to hope, to fantasy, to nothing ever again and that: so long, here’s my number.
Bad boys like bad bags.
Like Heavy, in the diner on Houston.
Like the time I cut my knee, and the cops came, and we went back to your place.
Like the second goodbye.
Like the first.