There's glitter on the floor after the party
but it's a pile of leftover bottle caps and the corkscrew only I know how to use.
A half-opened bottle of wine that makes me gag, and wrappers from the popsicles I cannot stand.
Arizona Iced Tea and a sliver of aluminum foil that once encased a plain Chipotle tortilla.
I have rediscovered how to eat like a child -- scarfing down fries in every restaurant we visit,
scooping plain rice into my mouth with raw, transparent glee.
And it seems silly, such a small thing, to have people to eat with,
but somehow, it is my greatest achievement.
Girls carrying their shoes down in the lobby
but I have never carried anything.
I march out into the night with a cracked iPhone and a dream,
and so my hair remains unkempt, my makeup undone.
A friend told me her blind trust in the universe kept her safe through her reckless unpreparedness,
and well, frankly, I don't have such a bone-deep belief in predestination.
But I do have RBF and good peripheral vision and it feels earned, now, that I exude calmness through calamity.
Candlewax and Polaroids on the hard wood floor
And a small vial of perfume we made ourselves clanks around at the bottom of your bag.
I scrub vodka cranberry off my teeth and wipe painted on freckles off my face,
untying the bandana wrapped so tightly around my chest I couldn't breathe.
A real writer told me once that good writing isn't quite so self-indulgent.
These details are too self-referential and hyper-specific, and therefore inscrutable without intimate knowledge of my life.
It will make me a celebrity, not an author, if my work is fascinating only to those who find me equally so, but the imagery of my own past enamors me beyond objectivity.
My life is just a million microscopic sensations -- a head on my shoulder, my head on a shoulder.
A breath of fresh air, a whiff of blueberry smoke.
A scenic view, eye contact over a crowded room.
It is the only way I know that it will always be
You and me forevermore
We will always be good, it will always be us.
You can sob in the Uber on the ride home and we can never mention it again,
but we can always talk about it, too.
Because it is not easy to be a good person, or to try earnestness instead of frivolity,
but it will always be harder alone.
This is the only family I will ever get a choice of,
and I choose this -- tiny little memories that remind me why I'm alive.
Comments
Post a Comment