At times, I believe it is only adrenaline that propels
my car forward, and I procced on the idea of promised
land alone. I cannot go up, so I move sideways, push
dimensions. The air shimmers,
yellow lines dot dot blur heat,
my voice is raw, I stick out my tongue
in the mirror, an oyster, pale, dying
out of water. Has my body had enough? I am
assemblage, put me together…
last week I met a collective of riot grrls
who think they’ve tapped into something
in the moon (I read all about it in the brochures
with a young girl in pigtails smiling
from the cover). The light there is just a reflection though,
and it becomes civilization instead, but
when they describe the twist they feel just behind
the breast bone—
it almost feels real to me.
There is no way to get what we had back, when
we had hope. Instead, what’s left
is this back-and-forth, except
only half that. What’s left is the idea
that it could have been, and if I let that go,
I know it won’t change anything really, except you and me and feelings I never knew on any version of this earth, just a bit of that idea of hands clasped in fear and purity and something that smells like rain on hay. If I let these ideas go, you will eat and sleep and no one will ever wake you too early again.
And who would it hurt? I’ll build
a house on the Louisiana swamp,
maybe learn how to write songs
on the fiddle, calluses on my fingers,
new testaments.
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