Where Are You?

Elaina tells me that drinking gin to put me to sleep will only make it harder to wake up. I reassure her that I am not trying to make it easy, that I wake up and drink half a bottle of NyQuil to dim the pain of the bright sun. I wake up and go right back to sleep again. I tell her I am now dreaming of Connecticut as a safe haven and  the Mid West as a nightmare.

Lone Red Wall

Years from now, I will be in the midst of life I never knew I'd want or wish for. I will be painting a room to sleep in with a person I have not met yet or someone I have already met many times; someone I admire and loath sometimes at the same time.

I will look back at this point in my life, when I was sleeping just to smell familiarity woven into cotton threads, and take comfort in how far I have come. The empty bucket of paint will bring me back to a time when I was both coming and going but getting no where.

First Few Times

I remember knee length washed out gray skirts and lacy pink shirts. And there was Jack Sparrow hair peering out behind wipers keeping time on winding roads. There were sincere eyes and an honesty that I have since tried to find. I remember falling asleep in the woods, waking up wrapped in a blue down comforter sweating under the sun. It was a summer of thick black headbands with pink hearts and long blond hair; I had the blondest hair. There is no way to reproduce the humidity that July.

Muse

There is a certain level of calm that has finally sunk in and now it's alright to not know where anything is headed. The plan that I painted was not with my own brush and when I went back to remap the route I ruined the painting using my finger.

After a day of walking all you want to do is sink your body into a bath tub and submerge yourself into the life of Jean Paul Marat.  Your battle cry would be referred to as explosive and your smile deadly.  This is where you become a revolutionary and have the power to stir up an entire society with just one speech. Their concerns become demands and anger unfolds before you the same way you've felt it bubble up inside you. It all sounds very romantic from the solitude of bath salts.

In the morning, there is broken glass on the carpet. The mirror is still standing like a wounded solider reporting for duty. As the general I understand that I have no choice but to rise to the occasion and rally my troops for another day of battle- another day of being beautiful and charming.

This is War, This is Love

I am dreaming of past summers but not in the fantastical way of missing sand between my toes and the warmth of the sun as it browns my freckles. In the middle of the day, while everyone is lathering themselves with tanning oil, I am still hiding under blankets pretending it is June. I cling to itchy pillow shams and sweat as if there was air conditioner blowing on me. The sun sits high and melts my bangs to my forehead through the window.

On the phone with your mother, you promise to keep living. The water is warm and your toes tingle as you step into the tub. When your shoulder gets use to the water you dead down further. The air bubbles feel like waves crashing against your cheeks and it’s the most quiet you have experienced since you woke up. 

In DC, it’s a frenzy. People there are walking around looking for a connection to those they have been left behind by. I take a cab instead of the Metro, and as we change lanes I watch the memorials fade away. It’s happening, this living that everyone does, it’s happening to me and I guess it time to embrace it before it leaves me behind.

Choking on my own gum I wake up to feel the heat from the moon. It's not the 21st of any month, it's not even summer. My sweat is a hallucination that comes from a fever that refuses to break. I cry for the chill of snow to bring relief to my skin.  Our lives are measured by the weather.