muscle memory always slips my mind. the idea that your body always remembers. you always remember.
something about walking through the neighborhood you grew up in and the wind chill turning your hands into stone while remembering that your childhood best friends used to live in those houses over there. they haven’t lived there in a long time.
it’s 17° and i’m walking until i can’t. something about the hands in my pockets being so numb that they don’t feel like mine anymore. the joint sits between my chapped lips despite the fact that the flame went out two blocks ago, yet i keep walking, wondering if i’ll run into Little Me if i go far enough.
thinking about seeing her, me, on the school playground across the street in the summer. running through the grass with her friends and making up stories and pretending to have magical powers that made us feel bigger than the neighborhood that raised us to feel small.
my fingers are cold. my skin knows nothing but discomfort now. but the discomfort eases when my fingers get tingly and i finally feel warm again. when will i feel warm again?
