Wendigo – Scott Litts

August 28, 2024

She, in a woodsy suburb, having found her way to you, 
smokes and watches Adult Swim.
You live alone, chaotically, and you are small with one another. 
It really is so simple. 
He, on a daylit beach, having committed his youth to impermanence, 
has for now removed his uniform. 
The water is warm and filled with the unmet. 
He is alone but storied and wanted. 
He will board again in three days.

Imagine them as you like: ideally, virginal, copacetic. 
They will persist with you if you let them.

He is losing focus, gloriously, on the pier.
She takes a pill and has too many ideas.
He savors tuna fillet and realizes he doesn’t know where he is. 
She draws you an album cover and now you must finish writing it. 
He wears sunglasses indoors, unselfconsciously, monadic, gambling. 
She, this, is time to waste, uncrowded by all future moments.

Perhaps these times now are once again fleeting times, 
times without expectation, no long trajectory, only imminent collapse.
Nevertheless, it’s rare to commit to such a thing.

He’s cultivating an expertise of being alone but has no such plans. 
She’s throwing plates at the wall but will never leave. 
He’s found a jazz club in the early evening where locals sell him bad cocaine. 
She’s in the passenger’s seat at sunset taking a picture. 
He’s underwhelmed and has no problem showing it, but is glad to have taken a chance. 
She apologizes for the way she is.

Sleep, eat. 
Undergo what there is to undergo until there, again, 
the fullness of an unlived moment exceeds you,
a gesture unrealized defeats you and, again, there— another peal, 
a sound you’d never think to hear is folding into your lack. 
Turning your head, you’ve missed it. 
Is this all you feel when something wraps around your heart?