I wrote this in the winter.
Everyone leaves. Hardly anyone ever stays. Not in these parts, at least. Not with the melodramatic murmurings of a suburban town with too little to do and not enough to contain, with restaurants that close at 10pm on weekends and stoplights that flash red, red, red all night, every night. Why would you stay? There is nothing here. Nothing, except for me. You get in a car, or on a plane, and then you’re miles away, hundreds of them. I imagine you to be somewhere more fashionable. Somewhere with city lights, lots of them, brightly gleaming, casting rings of shadows atop your hair. Where you are, there are probably late-night diners serving corn beef hash for cheap, perhaps even flashy cinemas with neon signs and bowling alleys and beer, lots of beer. Where you are, there are probably laughs, deep-throated chuckles and toothy grins, cheap entertainment, video games and ritzy promenades, snow, palm trees, sand.
But everyone leaves. Maybe you should stay. I think you should. Stay. Won’t you?
Stay. For yelp runs on rainy days and caffeinated nights. For indoor board games and home-bound concoctions. For morning fog and heartbeats competing with the pattering of nighttime rain on car windows.
Stay.