I still look for planes

When I hear them

I crouch

Instead of sit

So I'm ready

I feel the hair on the back of my neck

stand up—

a threat

But I'm really just standing in line

at the grocery store

McDonald's

the gas station

I sleep

With a racked gun

Beneath my pillow

I check rear view mirrors

Every time the car stops

My six is vulnerable

because there is no one left to watch it

All still deployed

Or dead

or going to college

And here I am

Here I am.

Figuring out how to assimilate.

you'll never see a photo of me

framed & displayed on a desk

never will someone's bed

feel empty without me

no one will long

for the scent of my perfume

or the suppleness of my skin

you'll never have to save the date

or RSVP

for me

never will you hear them speak of me

with fondness & regret

perhaps indifference

maybe, at best, contempt

memories of me

fade

like fog & distant dreams

you can ask me about a lover

but no name will fall from my lips

because i'll never

say forever

ever again

it was brief, passionate, intoxicating, lethal—

a love that was never truly discovered, but proclaimed

i try to forget him—

his crooked nose & gritty smile

smelling of old spice & marlboro menthols

tasting like rum & sugar

i'd trace my fingers along the sinews of his body

try to lose myself in those artic eyes

sometimes he'd look at me, let me sense his pain

but we'd never speak about it

just lust & fawn over one another

talk politics & old stories

drink & smoke & watch stars punch through the sky

until one day

we just didn't

i thought holding on

would be my profound act of defiance

but then logic overcame me

so i released

left behind nothing but cigarette butts

& ashes & empty bottles of sailor jerry

because that's what you do

when you're more of a man

than the man you were with

I used to feel invincible. It wasn't when I was a child. It wasn't when I was a teenager. It was the year I turned 27.

I was impenetrable because I didn't care anymore.

I embraced self-destruction wholeheartedly.

Logic and reason ruled hard, emotions ran harder.

But I made shit happen.

I sit here, two years later, longing for that part of me.

Healed with visible fault lines.

Feeling insecure—not invincible.

Where is that person who protected herself?

Come back to me, woman.

i think a lot about the baby

we could have had

should have had

but didn't.

and it's my fault.

i dream about your hand

on my swollen belly,

your smile as you sense

what we created—

would have created

if only

my body was a battered vessel

my mind too wounded to comprehend

i feel it now.

wishing my womb would have sustained what was ours—

wishing my mind could have overcome itself

i dream about you

i dream about me

i dream about what could have,

should have,

but didn't.

my fingertips long

to feel a kick or heartbeat or sigh

that isn't just mine

or yours

but what could have been,

should have been

ours

cuts my commute

20 extra minutes to do what i please

26 miles of bridge against my tires

beats creeping up the Highrise

what's lost

is that rugged view of Downtown

the Dome

nestled like an egg

in a nest of multi-story buildings

and 100 year old architecture

how sweet it is to be little me

in the Big Easy.

waking up to a different ceiling

there is an absence of familiar sounds

that were once so foreign.

two years ago i heard trains,

a year ago, streetcars

today—my neighbor's wind chimes, passing traffic, and bar flys.

sure,

i still think of things

and people,

situations,

shit I felt and did

but god damn

does that feel so far away

the air is lighter

the opportunities

more tangible

have i changed?

absolutely.

am I more comfortable?

in a way.

but in the end

all that matters

is progress.

I bob & weave & trip over boxes--

some waiting to be filled,

some already overflowing.

Anxious desire fuels me

to "just get it over with"--

hurry up & move from home,

into home.

When that worn key turns the lock

one last time

I can reset my life,

unlock a new save point,

so I can respawn at a better time

than the one I found a year ago.

There aren't enough hours in the day

or logistics accounted for

to make this transition any quicker,

any less bitter, anymore sweet.

As the air cools & the humidity

draws out & the days shorten,

I sit and imagine what life will be like

on the other side of this--

this moment,

this city,

my pain.

At night I lay in bed

in a chaotically barren room

& feel pangs of the emptiness

of my past self.

Yet I know my boxes will be filled,

my soul will replenish,

& the past will feel that much further away

once I move on again.

That fence

Draped in sun bleached plastic beads

A pathway to my rock

Which is also a rolling stone

The only moss he gathers is mine

And that of his burdens

Sometimes.

His old ramshackle apartment

Wedged in an alleyway off of Camp and Magazine

Never to return

Only remembered

For those days we spend intoxicated

Hanging once bright Mardi Gras beads

On a fence with no purpose

Other than to gather and collect

Not contain.