On What Grows

There is nothing that changes what we do now. We’re so far flung from that orbit it doesn’t even make sense to talk about it, to use comparisons, to think of one another when something new is done. It is hard for me to imagine those long drives, hard for me to think about how bottled up we kept the words, hard to remember or maybe it’s hard to forget how that first apartment felt. Idaho is an island.

It is wild how we refigure ourselves, how we can climb new fixtures and twine ourselves to lines and telephone poles. I still buy flowers for the coffee table. Last summer was such a split open treasure chest I feel guilty feeling looking so normal, like I shouldn’t be allowed to stay in one place.

I planted tomatoes and hung my clothes inside and got a dog and put kale in the refrigerator because these are the things real people do. I bought a salad bowl so it would mean I have somewhere to live. We are the life we build up around ourselves. I try to make my own coffee again. 

It seems like a nice time of year to slow down, and even though it’s summer it’s always grey. I wish we could sit down and you could say all of the terrible things you think about me so they might stop dripping out slowly, ruining what small common ground we have left. Statements like that are like salt on the earth, nothing is going to grow there now.