(no subject)
Get a grip New England. I can't believe what a tease the weather has been. it borders on cruelty, really, if we're being honest. After being cold for so long, all it took was a bit of warm weather for me to realize that I've been scarcely breathing for the past few months. My lungs felt rigid, and there is still something icy about the way I feel inside of myself, something that will take until spring to melt. That's New England though, she knows how to put the moves on you so you're walking around on eggshells without even knowing it. It's like living 4 months at gun-point, marking your breath in little puffy clouds until you forget what the color green looks like. And I did, until today. But I was sure not to look at it in more than a glance, as if staring could undo it, and make it somehow untrue. Still I'm sure I saw it, so the evidence is there. Spring is coming. Secrets out. The thaw always makes things seem clearer, and what would spring be without reinvention? I swear, each year I get older I understand the mistakes I've made better, but the clarity isn't comforting.
The last "poem" I wrote was in July 07, and I happened upon it today. Reading it felt similar to the way you feel when you accidentally open the door on someone while they're in the bathroom. Or rather, being the person walked in on. Very uncomfortable. I want words to come naturally to me again, and I think I've just got to keep pushing on through the discomfort and see where I end up.
God. Do you remember Nashua?
Do you remember book stores and sidewalks? Running in the rain with strangers, listening to the lectures of street preachers just in from New Mexico? My blue Buick with the bench seat? I thought that car was true luxury- and wasn't it? Do you remember those open mic poetry nights? Do you remember Doc and the bald Russian poet? Do you remember how well we all got along even though none of us belonged in that group together? What about the impromptu hallway meetings? We made promises to keep in touch, to write and publish. We made promises and sought out swing sets because it's too hot in Nashua's summertime to do anything else. Movie nights. Board games. It feels like these memories belong to someone else, and they might as well, if you don't remember them too. Are you still here? Have you guessed that I'm wishing you [all], wishing you all the best? always. I want my life to be an open palm, and if we've changed and drifted I want that to be okay. I want the space and the silence to be well-wishing. We're all different people now and that has to be okay. Besides, how could we have stayed the same? And who made up the guidelines deciding "better" from "worse" anyway? I bet that whoever they were, they didn't grow up in Nashua with us. You'd have had to live it to understand it. I hope that whoever you are, wherever you are, you can tell that someone is still rooting for you without even knowing you. We promised that too. I'm sure of it. I'll be true to that, even if my failure at the other promises cannot be forgiven.
To you. To Nashua.
From me.
with love.
The last "poem" I wrote was in July 07, and I happened upon it today. Reading it felt similar to the way you feel when you accidentally open the door on someone while they're in the bathroom. Or rather, being the person walked in on. Very uncomfortable. I want words to come naturally to me again, and I think I've just got to keep pushing on through the discomfort and see where I end up.
God. Do you remember Nashua?
Do you remember book stores and sidewalks? Running in the rain with strangers, listening to the lectures of street preachers just in from New Mexico? My blue Buick with the bench seat? I thought that car was true luxury- and wasn't it? Do you remember those open mic poetry nights? Do you remember Doc and the bald Russian poet? Do you remember how well we all got along even though none of us belonged in that group together? What about the impromptu hallway meetings? We made promises to keep in touch, to write and publish. We made promises and sought out swing sets because it's too hot in Nashua's summertime to do anything else. Movie nights. Board games. It feels like these memories belong to someone else, and they might as well, if you don't remember them too. Are you still here? Have you guessed that I'm wishing you [all], wishing you all the best? always. I want my life to be an open palm, and if we've changed and drifted I want that to be okay. I want the space and the silence to be well-wishing. We're all different people now and that has to be okay. Besides, how could we have stayed the same? And who made up the guidelines deciding "better" from "worse" anyway? I bet that whoever they were, they didn't grow up in Nashua with us. You'd have had to live it to understand it. I hope that whoever you are, wherever you are, you can tell that someone is still rooting for you without even knowing you. We promised that too. I'm sure of it. I'll be true to that, even if my failure at the other promises cannot be forgiven.
To you. To Nashua.
From me.
with love.