Residual Curiosities Poem by F.K. Preston

When I first met you
you had your arm in a sling.
Your front teeth were crooked.
There was this great, big, grin stretched across your face.
I was curious.
Sometimes curious is a far worse thing to be than in love.

The second time we met
years after the fight
there was a smile on your mouth.
Your teeth were straight.
Your arm was fine.
Your jokes were quiet. The punch line soft. Words directed towards yourself, rather than the older kids, twice your height.
Where'd that kid go?

The third time we met
I wouldn't know the fifth would be the last.
We answered dull questions honestly.
Remained silent for the complicated ones.
You showed me the scar on your arm from those seven stitches.
Imagined myself shouting at your childhood:
Stay away from the sixth grader with the dead eyes.
We traced the scar with our index fingers.
No scars of my own to show. You kept asking.
We parted ways at the train station.

Number four was when we were brave.
I said I was dying. My left leg had two bullets sleeping inside
muscle and bone.
You dragged me away from the gunfire. Warned me against sleep.
It's all I wanted to do.
You said to stay curious.
Keep curious.
You better not fucking die.
I woke up to a pretty face. Wasn't yours. Told her I felt cheated.
Her name started with an R. She said I'd have a limp.
She knew you when I described your character.
Her jaw went tense.
Got some shrapnel in the heart, R whispered.
Didn't say you were dead.
Worry carved my curiosity out.
Night fell. Smothered me in sleep.
Heard your complaining from the other side of the bloody building.
Six o'clock in the morning, surrounded by dying strangers, you're whining about the food.
You called my name. Shouted until they knocked you out.
You'd admit it later on.
They'd sent me home while you slept,
I'd admit back.

You died getting shot too close to the heart.
You'd call it romantic
But your tone would say "cruel".
I'd die years later.
Old.
Bitter at my years.
They didn't seem to end.
It's what I deserve for falling for a star.
They're already dead, you know? Even when they shine their brightest.
Looking at you for your entire life
You never knew you were a star.
No one told you.
You'd die in seconds. Quick.
As fast as the shot that took you down.
A burst of flames and powder.
Like the devil himself came to take you away from me.
Did you know our fifth time
would be the last?

I spent half my life dying.
Don't do that.
Don't ever die when you can live.
You'd hate me for it. I can tell.

We met at that train.
Decided to leave in the same direction for once.
We'd stay in the same town. Grow a garden together.
Travel the woods
further down south
where the river would dry in the summertime.
We made those plans.
Made them with smiles.
You left that spring.
I finally said:
don't go messing with the sixth grader with the dead eyes.
Just to make you laugh.
Didn't stop the war.
Or the fear.
Didn't stop the world.
Our jokes couldn't stop the world.
Couldn't even stop ourselves.

You start growing numb.
Everything lags
a second behind
your own goddamn shadow
says goodbye.
People talk at you.
You're quiet.
Your thoughts are hushed.
As if they're scared.
Scared to know you're grieving.

I found out you were dead
when I read your name on a list of soldiers
who wouldn't be home for Christmas.
The service was nice.
A little loud. Lots of families.
Lots of young people in uniform,
too curious for their own good health.
A mother asked me:
who'd you lose?
Kept looking at my leg. At my cane. At my uniform.
Like she wanted to thank me for my service.
I tried your smile on her. You know, the cocky one?
That one you wore when we first met.
Tried it on her.
Just a friend, I said.
Just an old friend.
She didn't stick around for second thoughts.

There's a loaded gun
sitting in the drawer
at the oak desk
you'd write your jokes on.
I'd never use it.
Too curious.
Too damn curious about this deal called life.
Wish you'd been more curious about living than dying.
Maybe number five wouldn't have been our last.
Maybe we would have met seven times,
sixty times,
a thousand times more.
Maybe.
Maybe.
See? That's the curiosity talking.

I remember this one joke you told me the first time we spoke.
Your crooked teeth whistled every time you laughed.
That laugh was loud.
I liked it loud.
It never got quiet over the years.
The punchline was you leering at me.
Will you sign my cast?
What a smug kid.
Course I signed it. Who could resist?
It didn't help kill the grin on your face.
Not one bit.

You reminded me once
about curiosity.
That cat-killing business.
Satisfaction always comes back around once a month.
The wondering isn't for nothing.
Dreams are currency for the desperate and lonely.
Curiosity gave me a dream.
Take a seat,
I'll offer you a slice of this day-dreamer mind.
Imagination requires company.

Wednesday morning I wouldn't wake up.
You were right, you idiot. It was worth it.
Wouldn't change a second.
Except the beginning.
I'd tell you to stay away from the sixth grader.
The one with the dead eyes.
You'd listen, you brat. Cause you wouldn't need to be picking fights with bullies.
You'd watch him break some other kid's arm.
You'd have me.
We'd get our thousand meetings then.
You'd keep listening.
You'd be more curious about the joy
instead of the pain.
We'd go walking that summer.
Ignore the war.
That last part gets me.
Who could ignore a war?
I'm so glad you only saw one.
That summertime, you'd say, "Come with me".
I'd go.
I'd be curious.
That bullet would kill you.
You'd bleed out by my knees.
Not alone.
Not quick.
You'd die slow.
Like they do in stories.
You'd get your last joke in.
No one would survive the next round of fire.
It'd be fair.
That mother would ask some other stranger,
"Who did you lose? "
While our names
sleeping side by side on gravestones
would get friendly all over again.
It'd be fair.
But fair is for all those fictional worlds.
Seven stitches and a broken heart later, you would still be a realist.
Five years later
you'd be a stranger.
Remain a stranger.
How much worse that would be.

Half my life later
I'd die.
From something drawn-out
and expected of my age.
What would you say to me at our sixth meeting
if we'd been given one?
Probably nothing.
You'd just grin.
At the joke of it all.
I'd grin back.
You were always trying to get me to laugh at your jokes.
We'd be two grinning fools
at the train station,
headed west.
Our cases filled with ideas instead of medals and memories.
We'd say nothing that journey home.
Just grin.
Finally get that curiosity to work.
We'd understand.
It was love all along.