Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedTonight, my neighbor starts sobbing again, screaming at his distantlove. He curses resourcefully, sending each syllable up like balloons. I stand on the porch, shrouded in my bathrobe, while he calls her, Bonnie, along with every name in his book of love and rage, until he sank down on the curb and began to cry, bony chest heaving. She comes out to the balcony. Tells him to go away. Some nights, she lets him up, only to send himout packing again. How strange is, in my bare feet, feeling for himand Bonnie, despite their inevitable—probably healthy—collapse. As I try not to imagine him throwing a trashcan through her window, what breaks through instead is sadness; you, a once-close male friend, whom I loved for your hidden glimpses of shining kindness. There were three A.M. phone calls; you could nurse me back to laughter. Then, some silly fight put a sudden, silent stop to our talking—a rift, I now barely recall; something about you telling me to open my eyes: Some men are always scanning the horizon in search of something better than the women before them, which stuck me in a tender place I didn’t know I had, if only because I didn’t want to see my man at the time was always looking. But that was then. And you were trying to warn me, to which I slammed down my phone like a tiny door, refusing to listen. As my neighbor continues screaming, shrill as a girl, he might as well be anyone and proof that maybe some guys never say the right words, no matter how they love you, and some womenmay not answer or hear, but my lord, is he ever trying. Makes me wish we could talk, even if it releases what steams inside each other. If there's one thing I realize, it’s that tonight, if you’re awake, I am too, and finally ready to listen.

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