Bridges
Wilson Koewing
source: Chattanooga Times Free Press
Why do I feel such an intense desire to leap from them? How alone am I in this sensation? The pedestrian bridge in Chattanooga. Possibly fatal, but unlikely. What happens inside the middle? The pull to grab the rail. The speed of falling. Time slowing. Thoughts, or the clear mind of terror’s grip? Will my feet break? Water temperature. The bar at the Edwin won’t open until five, so I wander into downtown thinking about the redhead I didn’t go home with in Johnson. One of my most revisited regrets. The crunch of the snow in that town. Oh, how I miss it. The river and the red building. The leaves that no longer clung to branches because I barely missed fall. I suppose it’s all about her, this one. Not the redhead. Not leaping. We shared a dance that last night. The November before the pandemic in the lounge beneath the dining room. And a look that said it all; we both were taken. Still my eyes searched for her at every meal, view her now in social media flashes. Not really the social media type. Truth be told, no type that I have encountered. I wish we’d met at a different time. When we were young and free and looking. Because something beautiful could have bloomed in the dawn of that soft distance. Instead of the realization that what might have been was always so far away. Magical moments and blurred edges. Living kaleidoscope. There’s proof in the pudding that if you aren’t a hypocrite about some things then you’re simply lying. Only the son was perfect, and I think often about how much time I spent with him as a child. I never liked it, but he did teach me right from wrong. The older I grow the more I realize I felt older when I was younger. Each day the sun dips, I feel younger still. There’s so much to learn in this atrocity. I see her, and suppose I always will, walking toward me in the snow. My heart dancing like the electricity through the lines above her. That town seemed to have so many power lines. Waiting to get close enough to see her face and the smile that would upturn. We are lovers in our hearts. So close that night. Hidden in darkness. The river slicing through the ice that hugged its banks. Two old rooms we could have gone to, both cold. Beds with thin blankets. The warmth we could have brought each other under dim lighting. Miles from anywhere in that little town.
Wilson Koewing is a writer from South Carolina. His work has recently appeared in Rejection Letters, Trampset, Bending Genres, The Loch Raven Review, and JMWW. @WKoewing