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.

Flight Risk

I am living in this paradox of normalcy and drinking Club Soda from the mouth of the bottle licking germs from strangers. I'm reading biographies of men I've met in another life; men with such strife and stubborn convictions they bring their own young to their knees. I keep referring to the same random fact: Kangaroos eat their own offspring.

These instances stay with you; the experience doesn't follow you but moves along beside you. While I think of this, I look down and see that my hands are the color of summer rain in a satin base.

I will look back at this point in my life, when I was sleeping just to smell familiarity woven into cotton threads and feel overcome with a tiredness I will never learn to articulate. But by then, no one is asking me to. I'm offering a stuttered explanation to drawn, bored faces.

Those months were a time when strangers remarked that I was what you call a flight risk- only months had gone by and even the post office was having difficulty keeping up with me. In this same time of awakening, I started straightening my hair and using sand paper at a rate that alarmed both my roommates and my landlord. When the dust settled, so did a mess of curls against my shoulders. 

Three Days

They sat around the table with their heads hidden in their hands, almost more embarrassed than sad. The lights were off because the sun had not quite set and a small dog is whimpering in the corner. I feel his pain and his fear with such a force I search for a bruise for the following three days.

Noah

We're sitting around two benches that pass for coffee tables. The lawn furniture is cracking but we've put pillows over the plastic to make everything feel a little more dignified.

My keyboard is covered in teal and green paint. I stopped counting how many times a day I stop to think about what it must feel like to be you. And the calendar has slipped completely away from me. All that I grasped on to before has fallen the way we missed that sunset in mid September.

On the beach, I'm looking towards the horizon while ships pass. The under tow is strong but so am I. I am squinting and in the distance I swear to no one that I see it but as the waves crash and the currents pulls nothing towards me.