xmas
brittany works the night shift on tuesday at the halfway house where folks are let out of jail early on the condition that they live there and do alright smoking cigarettes instead of crack on a porch against a background of yellow siding.
on wednesday I work from 11pm to nine in the morning at the shelter where women and kids come to hide from raging boyfriends, husbands, fathers, who break cheekbones and ribs and hearts at once.
on thursday matt works from 3 in the afternoon to 2am flipping a flag around from "slow" to "stop" because the four people who live on birch bay deserve to be able to drive home safely whenever they want to even though the ocean says "no, I was there first. you can't build a road right up against me. it won't stop me. oh well..."
we are all owls, baby owls, at that. turning our heads around, confusedly... not understanding yet, what we are capable of... blinking at the confusing changes, the sun's arguments with the moon. meanwhile, we do it anyway... because what will we do otherwise? college degrees, rent, time... baby owls, not yet making nests.
I'm "home" now... the kind of home that belongs in quotation marks because my family lives here and I did to for a long while but as I drive in to this town in traffic all I do is sing loudly in ridiculous rhyme about it's absurdity and the giant inflatable snow-globes with pieces of synthetic whatever that float around like "snow" lit up on cul-de-sac lawns... someday maybe I'll write a musical about this place. meanwhile, I'm supporting my father in questions of gingerbread architecture... the sculpture this year is notre dame. the candles are carbon-conserving plastic votives, with LED flames. they blink and twinkle and look real.
on wednesday I work from 11pm to nine in the morning at the shelter where women and kids come to hide from raging boyfriends, husbands, fathers, who break cheekbones and ribs and hearts at once.
on thursday matt works from 3 in the afternoon to 2am flipping a flag around from "slow" to "stop" because the four people who live on birch bay deserve to be able to drive home safely whenever they want to even though the ocean says "no, I was there first. you can't build a road right up against me. it won't stop me. oh well..."
we are all owls, baby owls, at that. turning our heads around, confusedly... not understanding yet, what we are capable of... blinking at the confusing changes, the sun's arguments with the moon. meanwhile, we do it anyway... because what will we do otherwise? college degrees, rent, time... baby owls, not yet making nests.
I'm "home" now... the kind of home that belongs in quotation marks because my family lives here and I did to for a long while but as I drive in to this town in traffic all I do is sing loudly in ridiculous rhyme about it's absurdity and the giant inflatable snow-globes with pieces of synthetic whatever that float around like "snow" lit up on cul-de-sac lawns... someday maybe I'll write a musical about this place. meanwhile, I'm supporting my father in questions of gingerbread architecture... the sculpture this year is notre dame. the candles are carbon-conserving plastic votives, with LED flames. they blink and twinkle and look real.