#trailings

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This morning I twist in it. Because sometimes the sheets get tangled around my legs from all that dreaming about us I tend to do. Because sometimes they ask me why I write and there are lots of things I wish I was brave enough to whisper to them. I write because I can't remember what step one was. Because I don't know what they saw in me back then, when I was chewing on street fair bark and selling parts of my skin to moments that belonged to other people. I write because of how my boots feel in the mud. Because I slip and can't hold my footing. Here I am still married to not knowing. Rip into me. Inhale the smell in my shirt. I am waiting between rainstorms. I write because of this bruise on my leg. Because there are all these things I want to say to you but my language got caught up in the Black Hills. On Bourbon Street. Hold me. I write because of the scars on my hands. I write because we bathe in water. I write because I was raised in summit fever. I write because my heart is full of windows that you've spent a year opening. Because you sing to me in ten dollar words. Because I am stubborn. Because I lose the feeling of these clothes on my skin when you laugh in my ear. Sometimes it is wild country. Sometimes it feels like one thousand mountains. I write because you wished for more ways to talk about what being young looks like. When the light comes over the mountains as you crawl into bed. When your day doesn't start until noon. The way your shoulders get kissed by the Vegas spring. The twist in your gut. The laughing when your pants rip. The one more round. The asking why. The let's keep driving. I write because you wished for more ways to talk about what comfort looks like. The knowing you're still asleep while I'm up making coffee. The silence that waits for you to find the words. The moon crawling across the night. That blanket. The voice on the other end of the phone call that says, you don't need to worry. My words are still written about you. They always will be. I love you. I'll keep saying it. The let's keep driving. I write because I am tangled in this. Because I wish I could say this when they asked me what was next. Because we should keep driving.

Today I sleep in it. Because sometimes I wonder what it would sound like if my father had tried to teach me these things I have come to know. You will fall in love with eleven pm, he would say. With the way the dusk bleeds into the moon. The way you can't tell the difference between your cigarette smoke and your breath when shivers line your spine. The way the stars rip out of the sky while you wish on them. You will clip your heart to a train, because they remind you of me. Because you will feel home when you are between here and there. You will be kissed by a woman and her lips will brush across your mouth like silk sheets. You will love how you make each other more beautiful. It will feel like a mountain. And she will change everything. You will leave. You will have to. And you will fall in love with a map, and you will be fine as long as you have a few bucks in those high-waisted shorts you made out of my jeans. All you need will be that woman waiting on the other end of that map, on the other end of that train, on the other end of that phone call. And she is thinking about the curves of your hands. And that thought will stretch for miles. You will learn to only use the word love when your skin leaks in it. You will never forget how to carry a hammer. You will lie, you will make mistakes, you will be sad to cause someone else pain. They will love you regardless. I hope that you call me when your skin finally fits, he would say. Don't be afraid to shed old "you's" that no longer make sense. Grow. They will love you regardless. You are likely to run into hurricanes. Your body is a home in the Lower 9th Ward. It has windows that open and close and sometimes the water will rush in. Sometimes there will be damage you will not know how to fix. But you have something here that is worth a poem, he would say. And it will be beautiful.