Blood on the Tracks.

I worked on my feet all day, mostly outside.
She sat in an office from nine to five, barely awake.
Needless to say we sought to spend our precious
weekends doing the opposite of what
our respective jobs entailed: I wanted to lay around
all day reading dead men in the tranquil comfort of
my temperature-controlled domicile; she wanted
to wake up at the crack of dawn to drive an hour north
haul ass up a mountain, eat a peanut butter
and jelly sandwich at the top, and run back down.
It was one of the many reasons
why it was doomed from the start.
Still, it had its valuable lessons
if not its perks.

"Put those in here," she said
handing me the Zip-Loc bag that
she'd pulled from her pack
like some sort of second-rate
tree-hugging magician.

"Are you serious?" I asked
with the raise of just one eyebrow.
Smoking while hiking was enough
of a paradox; fussing over biodegradable
bits of paper and cotton was
the icing on the cake that I'd rather be eating
with a nice glass of milk and some Dostoevsky.

The familiar half-squint she shot my way
as she pursed her lips professed the severity
of her demand and convinced me to comply.
I didn't want to risk being cut off from
the Catskill Mountain mid-hike sex.
That was the only reason I'd joined her
on the few Sunday excursions that I did.
It made all of those calorie-burning sweatfests worth it
for fifteen minutes or so.

I'll never forget the time that black bear
stalked up along the creekside ridge
just twenty feet from where we were doing the nasty.
He must've smelled it in the air and wanted a piece.
Maybe I should've let him maul me to death then and there
thus saving myself from the beatings that she'd come
to give me later on, and our eventual demise after
almost two years of trying not to lose what wasn't really there.

But hindsight's 20-20 and she always made a good sandwich.
I can live with that.