Not Everyone Has to Learn This Lesson

Like what I have in the coin purse of my wallet. Like what I have rushing through my veins, to my heart, into my soul. I can't remember a single thing from last September. I can't remember what it feels like to not want to go home, or to be part of something I was proud of, or be surrounded by people with personalties, or breath clear air. I can't...

I'm wearing a striped shirt. I haven't brushed my hair since I was last home. My teeth hurt. I guess going to a University full of intelligent people was a humbling experience. However, so is realizing your crumbling will right in the eyes as it falls apart, or watching you sleep on the couch.

Peaceful, unwaivering, the only light in my life. The only thing left, for all I am worth: good, or bad (even if it's mostly bad).

I think it's bad when I have to keep reminding myself what is actually in my heart. I believe there are a lot of people waiting patiently for me to fail. I wasn't humble enough to let them believe in me. I thought I could do it without them but they were right: We're all nobody.

You Have a Part of Me

Cause this is everything I know: This couch, these walls, this bed. This is the dresser that was in my first bedroom. "This is our new life." I can hear your voice ringing in my ears and I want to wrap my fingers in yours.

Within one week, I have been up and down, North in South. I have seen some things that no one should ever seen, I have romped in the woods with my roomate and his dog. I am not proud of myself or my mistakes. I have seen the great swamps of the Merrimack River valley and the Tyger River, just 1200 miles South.

I am tearing through my phone. I am hanging on your words. I left my heart with you.

New England air, Boston is breathing through me like a blanket that fails to keep me warm. I am crying now, both hands on my backpack straps like the first day of school, walking through the terminal to the bus stop to do things I shouldn't know how to do, like get back to Lowell in 2 hours without a car. I'm on a train, the same ones I used to ride to work. I'm in North Station, Downtown Crossing, The Gallagher Terminal, hugging my arms from the cold air, wrapping myself in my best friend's arms. I'm so sorry I ever left.

In my mind I'm in Spartanburg, in a car, or outside a pool bar in a bad neighborhood watching the grainers rumble past, with my fist clenched and my hood on. You're telling me you love me. You're begging me to come home.

We're in Charlotte, North Carolina at 4 AM. I'm waking up on the floor in the airport. My whole body aches, and I'm sweating.

You're home in bed, warm. I'm trying to find home. I'm trying to cope with my mistakes.

Gentlemen

I slapped myself in the face three times before I turned the key. The engine chugged and turned over. My knees were shaking with what you had just told me. I used to take the train to Boston, I used to live in Lowell. I wasn't afraid of anything, not the Future Barbershop, or walking through Haymarket Square, and yet I am entirely unequipped to deal with this. So when you ask me if I know what it's like, I don't. All I can muster is a half sincere, "It's going to be alright," and use the foggy mental compass in my head to get us home safely.

It's a stigma that has been built in my brain since day one. We're walking under a bridge with your hand at the nape of my neck. I should be mad, or scared, or something but we have a bottle in our hands and your expression is all business. My heads swimming and I'm watching you spiral. There is hissing coming from an empty truck bed. I think we're just looking for trouble. Waiting for it, just to see if we would know what do with it if it hit us.

And then I'm trying to see out the window but I have to keep wiping the tears from my eyes. My stomach is turning over, my lungs are inhaling and exhaling. You're still warm, but loosing it, spilling your guts, "Do you know what it's like?"

I don't.

If we had known that an hour later we would be in the grocery section of a Walmart, accomplices, acting belligerant, laughing, maybe we would have cut to the chase. We're in it together after all: alone in some state, miles and miles away from our rightful homes. You're not supposed to forget things like this.

Hallelujah It's Morning!

We're kissing behind your car, trying to pull away, trying to go to work, while the sun blinds us and turns our skin into golden embers. We're in this parking lot, and the world's not even awake yet. No one even knows where I am. Something in my belly tells me they don't care either, but I let that thought escape my mind, and let you heal my anxiety.

It's waking up in a pool of sweat, or on the couch and stumbling into your bedroom, even though whatever is dissolving in our stomachs prevents us from seeing straight. It's staring at each other in the eyes, unsmiling, while we play our instruments. It's watching the spider on your patio as it eats the innards of the fireflies. It's dancing to the Supremes, or moshing to the decline on your bed. It's sneaking me in because I'm homeless, or helpless: Like if you're not there, you're going to return to your old ways, or worse yet, disappear.

I keep looking at myself and feeling small, unhealthy, or ugly, like if I could take my skin off, I would. If I could jump into your dark eyes, I would. I wouldn't have been stuck here at work since 10, or have had to work so hard, just to be homeless another day, without friends or family to call on, without a car to fall asleep in. This is what I wanted...I guess.

Sharp

I am far too young to have seen your blood sucked up, flowing like velvet ribbons as it diluted itself into the water. I keep making that excuse for myself, like it is going to help me be anything but a helpless little kid. A helpless little kid without textbooks or a ride to class. I might be sitting against the wall in a grocery store with my phone plugged into the wall, but more than that I'm obsessed, and unable to look away, or less frightened when we talk about the past.

This is how I remember you best.

You're escaping to somewhere darker, and colder. You're sitting with your back turned to me. You're staring into Autumn. You're in the Delaware River Gap. You're in the North. You are the North.

Waking up Crying

Tonight is like pulling myself away from that twin mattress on the floor when I had to go to class. I remember thinking of how unfair that it was that I had to walk outside, into the cold street below, while you got to stretch your long legs and press your face deeper into the pillow.

I miss us in Elon, NC when we got woken up by that freight train. I miss comparing the tastes of tap water. I miss picking hairs of your sweartshirt. I miss the desire to run away, as opposed to the aching of homesickness. I'll miss our silhouettes at dusk in your driveway, ending an era, and understanding eachother like we were young again.

I can only feel you curling up next to me as if to say, "look what I did," while a feeling of admiration overcomes me. We'll fall in love, or something similar, in an egg shaped chair, like the one on the deck of the Montecalvos when I was young and used to know them.

Wide eyed, we are black eyed, and gray eyed.

I want to put you in an envelope and ship you over here and ride you around on my bike. then ship you back when you've had enough

I haven't seen anyone I need now, just a photograph of familiar faces with a tree in the fall behind them: blood red leaves contrasting their pallor, flushed from the brisk fall day. I'll wince when I go out on the porch because it is 95 degrees out there. I wont be putting on a flannel for a good long while. And yet somehow, it can feel like fall in my belly. Maybe it's the mere fact that it is August and I am going back to school soon. I'm am anxious. Maybe I just miss everything.

I'm thinking about walking with Luke down Pawtucket St. How Autumn became Winter and then Spring with my hand wrapped in his, our legs curled together, giggling at some movie playing on his computer screen. Cooking Mexican food in his kitchen with the duct during that blizzard in January. Meeting him after Accounting in the skate park. Recognizing warm air. Saying goodbye in my driveway in Lowell.

Or just driving away from Lowell. Maybe driving away from Ipswich too.

I am opening letters from Germany, anxious for your words. I am plotting ways back to Kentucky.

I am watching C.H.U.D. on a couch and thinking about Gloucester in the fall, blood red leaves.

I have to get to the Ocean.