2017, this time

I wasn’t even going to the train, I wanted to get Trader Joes cookies but sirens kept careening over the highway  and the lights never changed

Hollywood 39th Street the highway exit still has its old name and I go into an old house turned into a bookstore instead of getting groceries. I bought The White Tiger and Aravind Adiga won the Booker Prize for the story he told of a murder we were supposed to laugh at.  I didn’t read it for three more years. His last words were tell everyone on this train that I love them

Before his attacker left. I was standing at the intersection wondering what tragedy lay on the other side.

I don’t know his last words, if he hesitated before stepping in.

I know he came to the sentencing hearing with a scar down his throat and talked about the way alcohol had been burning him inside and out they were girls not trying to hurt anyone, not asking for suffering.

Tonight I listen to a poet mention you casually, wonder if she hoped Portland would bring the cops to justice then, if we could learn to fight for men who looked everything like heroes we knew, if we could learn to fight for young women who might have died for young men who did die for a city that did not know how to keep hate out of its heart and still has not learned.

2020

you move your box of letters to the basement of your parents home to forget about it until the world is unearthed by tragedies. for the sake of consolidation, the cards have begun to nest inside envelopes: birthday wishes, every regret you’ve ever held onto, every heart you thought was yours, dreams you let yourself outgrow. the last five years, the last four continents, the time since Portland,  since home, since graduation, since Portland, since home, since Boston, since graduation

it was his birthday yesterday  he drew you a picture of a cabin you could live in together and the skies you hoped to hold were never about him anyway so your home on wheels was built just like one in a letter you sent him before you gutted it to make your world big enough for your new girlfriend

she says the first I love you as accidentally as yours and you learn your heart doesn’t have to feel like an apology.

you told yourself if you could do it again you would go just as far, you would not love less

and she proves you right

And the 4th wall breaks so hard it hurts.

2017

You read letters to and from the last three boys you have loved look at your favorite photos of the year the last two years, the last four continents, the time since graduation, since Boston, since graduation letters from classmates you haven’t heard from in half a decade

it was his birthday yesterday he memorized the sound of your car pulling into the driveway and you haven’t spoken since 2013. he drew you a picture of a cabin you could live in together before you found out about his new girlfriend in a caption on the internet.

you wrote him three copies of a letter you never sent once a year after the day you left admitted you had loved each other when you could hold it at arms length.

if you could do it again

you would go just as far

you would not love less.

How Far Away We Are

by Ada Limón

So we might understand each other better: I'm leaning on the cracked white window ledge in my nice pink slippers lined with fake pink fur. The Air Conditioning is sensational. Outside, we've put up a cheap picnic table beaneath the maple but the sun's to hot to sit in, so the table glows on alone like bleached-out bones in the heat. Yesterday, so many dead in Norway. Today, a big-voiced singer found dead in her London flat. And this country's gone standstill and criminal. I want to give you something, or I want to take something from you. But I want to feel the exchange, the warm hand on the shoulder, the song coming out and the ear holding on to it. Maybe we could meet at that table under the tree, just right out there. I'm passing the idea on to you in this note: the table, the tree, the pure heat of late July. We could be in that same safe place watching the sugar maple throw down its winged seeds like the tree wants to give us something too– some sweet goodness that's so hard to take.

I am two hours into a Mount Hood tattoo and all I can think of is: Argentina.

The rolling hills, the prickly bushes, every tree covered in thorns. I took rich British people on trail rides for six months. Came back arms fire-engine red from my habit of putting myself between them and whatever was dangerous.

It seems like las Sierras think they have to hurt us I jokingly say one month before a man turns around to follow me down a rural highway telling me como él necesita mi concha. I walk along the center line hoping he will not come closer. Start weaving shoulder to shoulder, the same way I have been switching from Inglés a spanish  del gaucho to estadounidense. He charges at me.

I turn to see him grab his testicles and pull off in the first villas I find. Hide around la esquina para que él no pueda verme.

I knew I was growing comfortable with this tongue  but never gave it permission to lick my earlobe.

I start carrying a knife in my sport bra hope no one looks at me funny; I do not know how I would use it if I had to.

I am in the habit of putting myself between you and whatever is most dangerous, know only how to wipe my own blood off my arms.

The scratch scratch scratchscratch continues on my ribs. This is the kind of beautiful I am still trying to be.

voracity, mom you just asked why I consume never mentioned whom

rubber in my hands, plastic under my feet, i rocket down this highway no steel cage around me. every morning i tell myself i am saving money and the planet. every morning

the same homeless people yell at me the same homeless people sleep on the same benches the same homeless people smile and say good morning

today, one of my waterfront men is picking up broken bottles-- the part of me that coaches thirteen year olds every day after school says to him stop, that’s dangerous

he says like sleeping outside every night like not having a home or a home phone number like asking the police where when they tell you to leave one mile from home tonight I see a bus. cop lights. sirens. see something on the ground in front of the bus. hope it is still something breathing. he is homeless i hear him say I appreciate the effort but I will not resist you.

the bike lane is dark and I hope for no nails no sharp edges no broken bottles. no steel cage around me, it is dangerous like not having a home or a home phone number

like resisting or not resisting the police when they tell you to leave life is a series of dangers we must pick some of us just have more choice.

unfortunately large wooden salmon will always remind me of you legs wrapped around each other said it would be so easy if you were attracted to me drifting into yourself I asked what you were thinking exactly what I was luckily you weren’t.

When the water is glassy and random strangers stop on the bridges to watch a boat row through, I can't help but be amazed at the beauty of this sport.

You're the One(onta) That I Want

off gathering wood to stoke the bonfire i see the glow of a cigarette held to your grandfather’s lighter. this is new, the smoking.

i remember my father’s nose bleed when they told him his mother’s cancer spread from her lungs all over her brain. so badly, I would like to take it from you throw it in the flames

worse still, i want to coat my hands in gasoline fill my mouth with the embers sometimes we all forget how to keep ourselves warm.

Another day, another #launchstagram

(p)regatta