this is me still trying to catch my breath

i have new tori on the stereo, tori i didn’t even know was out there, tori i’m as in love with as i was scarlet, tori who’s saying, as she always says, things that are too cuttingly apropos & yet at the same time never commit to literally saying anything at all.

still the rain can’t confuse the thoughts that come in rhythm, because
it never was the cars and guitars that came between us
(still a thought says what if i
keep on driving?)

i have my out in california, i touched the other ocean, and i still have that jar of sand.

i have eyes still filled with greenery and sunshine, with rain that isn’t frozen, that can hit you, roll down, hang a moment & fall on to wander elsewhere without ever stinging, with the old familiar faces of two of my favorite friends, with brightly colored street-murals and rainbow-colored flags, with wind and wine and water.

i have feet still a little sore from keeping my birks from flying off at 70 somewhere cold along the thin-air bright-light highway between san fran & san jose. my daddy would scream

i have conversations in my head that made me actually enjoy what i do a little, conversations in my head that made me nineteen again for days, conversations in my head that waltz me around the room so well i don’t have to know the steps to keep on dancing.

i wake up to find the pirates have come, tying up along your coast–how was i to know the pirates had come?

i have aaric in my head, gleeful as a child but so much bolder & grown into his own skin, his own wings, than he ever was. i didn’t know–and i’m so, so glad it happened–that giggle would outlast the fears that reined it in.

i have mist streaming up like steam, clouds rolling around the moon, the stars, the meteor’s zing, fog sifting down between evergreens, chocolate-dipped strawberries, and three (not four–it’s important that you know i never called you four, only occasionally implied the analogy, never fixed your character that way) peter pans and fairy-lit flying pirate ships sailing around inside my head, pulled ever upwards.

i like rivers that rush in, so then i dove…i won’t push you unless you have a net

i would have spent a thousand dollars on that slumber party pillow-talk.

i won’t hold onto the tail of your kite–i’m not like the girls that you’ve known

i have postcards from scattered shops, photographs of ice and mountain ranges from 40,000 feet, new characters to try on like new thrift-store shoes, new appreciations for what one ought to mean when one says “tree,” and a softly-stummed guitar still humming “sister christian” in my ear; this girl only sleeps with butterflies

something’s gotta go wrong (missing two planes to make it home didn’t even start to count as “wrong” enough) cuz i’m feeling way too damn good.

pdxstraycat collected me last night & took me home to a fantastic home-made pasta & a butterfly glass of fingerlakes wine–home for the tastebuds too–& left for san diego several hours ago; i’ll see him next on sunday. it’s a scattered piece of spring i hope will change the both of us a little for the better.

“instinct and memories” will be our souvenirs