1. |
Write What You Know
01:36
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She picks up a stone, throws it at her old house and misses the window. The rock bounces off the side of the garage, and she cries silently and starts running down the street. She can’t even do this right. She can never do anything right. Do the new people living inside know? Do they have any idea? Can they feel the unhappiness in their new home still lingering, still lingering, sticking to the walls like yellow from cigarette smoke? Her teachers encourage her poems. They tell her to write what she knows, but she’s not comfortable enough for that, and so she smothers everything that she writes in metaphor until it’s barely there. The fingerprints left on the glass in the frame, the only proof that she saw and touched the thing.
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2. |
AN + TA
04:19
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If there’s a breeze in here, it’s coming through a broken window. If there’s a tender moment to be had, I missed it while smoking a cigarette. If it’s a new house, it’s built on sand, and if it’s an old wound, the bones were never set right. We met, both still cold to the touch. There were small fires but they did not keep us warm, so we built our own. If there was smoke, we did not see it until the first light of the morning. We tried to keep burning. Draw a figure eight and claim you believe in infinity. Tracing our initials into mud. Tracing AN + TA into mud. If there was a moon tonight, it’s passed beyond the horizon. When we talk about love, do we still keep our fingers crossed? I had a dream you were standing over me. I can't stand to be alone in this apartment.
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3. |
Certainty
02:22
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Stepping through drying concrete I didn’t see. Kick my boots off against the curb half-heartedly. I know this is sticking to me. The corner where my street meets the main road, at night it’s too dark to see my hand in front of my face. I watch the cars drive by. As loud and bright as shooting stars. There’s comfort in seeing something from a distance off, and knowing at least one wish could come true. The one that conflicts with the one of me being with you. Step into the street. When you find certainty, cling to it. There’s no stone so dense it won’t shift some when the water begins to flow. If I saw that concrete, I could have pressed my handprints in. There’s comfort, though, in leaving nothing behind. When I get home, I am telling you everything.
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4. |
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Leave the car running in the cold. Step out of the driver’s seat while that song you loved plays on the radio. Unlock the bolt and count each step I’m taking into your old home. I’m breathing out your name. I see it in the air, ask the darkness if there’s any way you could still be here. But I know. There are hopes and there are ghosts. Can you tell me if it hurts? When you were dying alone, I was out drinking with friends. How many cars on that road just drove by? I schedule my appointments for any time I think I’ll think and think of you. I keep all my prescription pills in a coffee can. I always know where the exits are. I keep a planner with nothing written in it. I still flip through its pages. I’ve stored away some larger bills. I drink from paper cups and stay away from messes I can’t just wipe away. I see it. It’s so clear. Your daughter dancing. Her small feet on top of these cheap black dress shoes.
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5. |
Every Meaningless Thing
02:49
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As this year ends, I’m patting down each day, shining a light on darkened corners. How much do we have left to give? It started with a car accident. It didn’t end with your father’s death. When you press her hands to your lips, hold her tight even when she wants to pull away. You need her today. When you save each scrap of paper he ever touched with a pen, every meaningless thing you now find meaning in. The way he wrote his “R”s in your name. The way you both watched baseball the same way: hopeful even when you’re down late in the game. It’s an instinct to hold still when you feel the eyes of something predatory passing over you. Let’s take our daughter and spend the rest of this year with our hands held tight and her in between us not moving an inch.
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6. |
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Tell yourself to stop and remember this. Because this is important. But I can’t remember anything important. It’s strange, what keeps and what we lose. The most vivid memory I have of my father is the two of us in an elevator. The way he laughed when it stopped suddenly. Then it ends suddenly.
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