If Nothing Ever Changes

I have had the pleasure of raising a critter, of petting her soft belly and praising her for peeing in appropriate places.  I have loved long and hard and given up on things I shouldn't have and fallen again.  I've done my best making a home in a place where I was told would 'never really feel like home.'  I have ridden bikes and laid on the grass and the sand and been burned in the sun and came back to do it all over again.  I have lied and behaved cowardly and confessed and smiled and fallen again.
For all these things, and if nothing changes, I have lived.

All the Feels

I am here to say that I have been pleasantly surprised by the quiet unfolding of events over the past few weeks.  I feel lucky/blessed/etc/etc to be in this place, but the truth is I have put in a lot of work and made several fucking hard decisions to get here.  And, yes, I was not expecting this "so soon," but I can't deny that something is happening.

For now that is enough to keep me hopeful, to continue getting to know this peculiar person and to be okay with all the not knowings of something new and real and fragile.

It's not the worst place to be, I suppose.

On Benefitting from Doubt

Remember that time I said I wanted to be taken advantage of? Scratch that. I definitely do not want that to happen.

I do still want to be kind and am trying to practice this skill daily. (Things tend to get easier the more you do them, good or bad...take that for what it's worth I suppose.)  I also realize that life for me is filled with far fewer wild adventures and many more quiet ones: interacting with humans, being outside, exploring.

Maybe re-learning how to be me is enough this year.  Maybe next year I get to re-learn how to be with others. Or maybe not.  Maybe I don't have holiday plans for the first time in my life and this is both terrifying and mildly okay.  Maybe being okay with the 'unknown' is an awkwardly small step in the direction of a much larger desire to be gracious in the art of letting go.

Whatever that means.

on misspellings.

I know I am supposed to be paying attention to my peers, these words, etc., etc.

But right now all I can think about are lovely ragamuffins, greying pony tails, raspy voices-
"Hi, Tiffany"'s and
"Hi, Dave"'s and
"Ashley the Addict."

All I can smell is brewing coffee, the tin of the carafe, the smokey sweetness of second-hand ash draining from the tip of your Marlboro.

All I can do is exist.

"How long has it been again?"
30 days? 60? 2 years?

It is a start.

tuesdays

she loves the way you talk: with r's rolling off your cultured tongue like buttons from the shoemaker`s hands.
but he has not mind to reveal the truth in a language misinterpreted.
she loves the way you grin with your whole face, gold-capped tooth peeping out like a mischievous bambino.
but he has not eyes that can recognize a smile of such paradoxical sympathy.
she loves the way you have worked.
&now, she loves the way that you wait.
but he just shakes his head, &grips the wheel harder: racing to retreat to his home on the hill.

wilder street

i can`t tell you why
i chose that sticky, sweet cake
only Opi knows.

j.e.h.

you!
Now,
I do not claim to be an expert on this sort
of music, church, &art;
but you with your rolled &beat up jeans and cap, quietly climb the hill to that place where
on a morning unplanned &traded shirts debut,
we saw you, victorious, Book in hand, and it was good.
Oh, may I learn to listen and not be afraid of seventh generation solidarity in a house of wolves!
Oh! may all that come behind us find us faith-full!

d.l.s.

there was some thing about you last evening,
it was just, just...
what was it again, exactly?
there has been some thing about you,
for these past years now, even.

i couldn`t help but think on you &me

then you, you were up there,
unrecognizable, dressed in things you do not wear
but i could still read you,
like the oldest of stories,
&my favourite ticking clock of a book.

you flew back down to meet me, [you all ways do, you know]
smiling and thanking me for thinking of you

oh! the beauty &wisdom that seeps out of your weathered, faith full soul!
&my heart
like a forlorn wanderer,
that has stumbled upon such a peregrine oasis!

today,

I have felt my age for the first time in quite a while.
I like who I am growing up into.