I will miss this backyard...

     One winter the power went out. There were candles and attempts at ghost stories. Katie was over like always. She backed me into the corner of my bedroom and spoke in that scary voice she uses while I talked on my parent's cell phone to the boy I would later fall in love with. Maybe fell in love with, I don't really know now if you can fall in love with someone when you're 15. I don't really know if you can fall in love with someone when you're 24. 
     The power is out tonight so I'm thinking of that night back in 2000-whatever. I remember thinking then that Katie is the only person who could make that night memorable. And how she's done that for so many nights since then. I don't remember what I talked to so and so on that phone about. I don't remember what I talked to any of the so and so's I thought I loved about. I remember that I thought it was really important at the time, and that I cried about it later, and that I sometimes try to hold on to all the so and so's and words, and nights and that it just doesn't matter sometimes. 
     It doesn't matter now. Oliver and I have a home in Nashville. We will be far away from all the people I keep saying I need to forget and remembering in my dreams. I will be far from my family and the few friends I'll remember on nights like these. I will miss my sister, and my Katie, and these chairs in the backyard, and the dry California air, but I won't miss the so and so's. I already don't. I'm just prone to weeping about the past. And it hasn't made me weep in a while, which confuses me.  
     It's the future my eyes tear for. The possibility. The way this is so natural. The way it's working.
     The battery is draining on this thing. The house it still dark. I'm still alone. So I'll sit, one last time, and remember the one's worth remembering, who coincidentally have stuck around long enough to still be relevant. 
     

I don't write because it's trendy...

There was a cat in the bar last night.


It kept rubbing against my legs, 
and hers. 
More her legs than mine. 
I hate cats. 
Because I am allergic, 
or because I make myself believe I am allergic,
because I hate cats. 


No one spoke to us this time,
and this night felt better, 
until we saw them, 
and panicked,
and peeked around the corner
before running to my car,
and giggled nervously at our nerves. 


Please come visit me 
in that romantic city 
in the south.  

Little Moments That Are Bigger In Retrospect

Sometimes
you fee like
you've lost yourself
or, everyone else has lost you
and then you run into
your ex-boyfriend
and he notices your pony tail
and doesn't have to be told 
how excited you are to have it,
he congratulates you. 
You remember
that at least you were loved once
and some people remember
who
and what
you are. 

"Stay What You Are"

Sometimes I get this feeling right before I fall asleep that I need to silently weep until I drift into whatever semi-unconscious state my body accepts as sleep. I get a lump in my throat, I choke on each breath.


But there's nothing to weep for anymore. No tears come to soak my pillow. It's just habit. A bad one. And I've spent the last few months breaking some bad habits I recognized a little bit too late. The trees are showing their leaves again. There are plans. There are roughly 3,000 miles between where I am and where I'll be. I am in love again, but in a new way. A better way. The most honest way.


There's much to smile about these days and smiling has always been foreign to me. I've saved them, but I've started to give them more freely. Not because anyone asked, but because they are deserving.


I don't know what to do with happiness, but I'm learning.
My hands are full and my grasp is just right. 

It's been a little while...

     Oliver and I were at the vet this morning. He's almost a year overdue for his shots. I sat in the waiting room trying to think of a good excuse to give the receptionist because I was sure she was going to scold me for being such a horrible parent. It's bad enough he hasn't had a haircut in a month and has to crane his neck upward in order to see anything since his hair is covering his eyes. I've had somewhat of  a rough year, give me a break. 
     So, I'm sitting on a seat I'm sure had been recently peed on, and subsequently disinfected, looking down into Oliver's sad little shaky face when I became aware of the loudest woman in the entire world. Of course she had three small dogs with her. Of course they all had horrible ailments, that of course I wanted to know all about. And yes, she was wearing a zebra print hoodie with what are commonly known as "yoga pants," but couldn't possibly have been what she needed them for since she was wearing a knee brace and I'll just leave out the part about her being shockingly overweight. I have a feeling her knee brace was from some sort of injury she was trying to get workman's comp to cover. She just seemed like the type. 
     Oliver and I remained quiet in the corner observing the other patients, and let's face it, if he's anything like me, making silent jokes about them, and judging the dog who peed on the scale, twice. I was trying to will Oliver to stop shaking with my mind because the voice I talk to him in is inappropriate for public and makes me look just as bad as zebra lady, who, I should add, had been talking about Sally's diabetes for close to 20 minutes. The topic soon changed to a tsunami in Japan, which I had no idea about because if I'm going to be honest I rarely know what's going on in the world and I have no excuse for it. Concern for Japan quickly turned to a concern for Palmdale.
     "What the fuck?" you say.
      Right. I have no idea why zebra lady and the lady with the chihuahua/poodle hybrid would suddenly get a sentimental look in their eyes when expressing their gratitude that this desert is so dry and disgusting, but they did. "That's why I love it here," Zebra said shifting a sleepy dog on her lap, "there's no drama." Because a tsunami is drama. Because I wake up and thank God every day that there are no tsunami's in the Antelope Valley. Give me a break. 
     It should be noted that a woke up in a nostalgic, bitter mood this morning. Whether it was the bad dreams I've been having or just impatience I started to feel a little bit lost. But, at the moment this horrid conversation was taking place, while Oliver huddled next to me in the corner I remembered all my plans and felt good, no, great even. And when zebra lady blew out the door, making an awful ruckus everything made perfect sense, except the Antelope Valley with it's abundance of dog wielding ladies in tight pants.