trijste..

Cass comes over around three thirty this morning. I am in bed but not asleep, the light is still on and the radio. My phone beeps and the text is “Here” and I get up to put my nightgown on and slippers, and I see her walking up the front path to the door.
There isn’t any verbal exchange when we greet, mostly a grunt and a flight of stairs up to my little apartment. Once we’re inside we begin to unravel and blossom a bit for each other, like some flowers do in the moonlight.
She’s very different from me, noticeably younger, carefree or less, but with a warm kindness that sneaks through the otherwise tough exoskin. In bed, I wrap an arm around her and hold her. Our hands meet and entangle and she pulls closer to fit neatly into the shapes my fetal pose creates. I cover her cold feet with my less cold feet and arrange the comforter to trap more heat over us. The window is open to clear out the smoke we made earlier.
She starts to shake all over, and I imagine she’s too cold still. I hold her closer, but it persists and becomes uncontrollable. She gets up and goes to the bathroom. She says it’s only like this when the cocaine is bad. I don’t know what to think, so I think nothing. She comes back to bed and we lie there, and I listen to her jaw chattering and chattering in the dark streetlight tones of early morning.
When the tremors finally cease she rolls over on top of me and we make lyrical movements of physical fantasy dances: the body’s saviour.
She says she can disappear if I want her to. But all wanting is for the moment satisfied.