First Grade

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“Don’t cry,” my mother tells me. I am in first grade, with a pretty knapsack and a lunch she packed me, and first grade always made me cry. “But I want to stay with you.” It was, to my five-year-old self, the most dramatic thing that I had to spend the whole day away from her, and I didn’t understand it. “You’ll be home soon.” -- “Don’t cry,” my mother tells me. It’s a habit that, as a twenty-something year old woman, I pretend I had grown out of. I’m sitting on her couch writing poetry – a piece from San Francisco that would one day become a friend’s housewarming present – and airplanes always made me cry. “I’ll just miss you, that’s all.” “You’ll be home in a few months.” None of us could have predicted a fucking pandemic that had probably already started, or known the next time I’d come back would be almost two years later. -- “I told you not to cry,” but I know she is also crying. She has stage four colorectal cancer, and we both wrote a piece with the exact sam...
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The World Fell on it’s Collective Ass

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I used to have expressive eyes. Perhaps masks are the world’s unifying feature. Perhaps they make pretty little mannequins of most of us.

I am on Zillow looking at houses. What the heck am I doing at one in the morning, with a sink full of dishes dating through Tuesday, looking at houses? A sky-blue door, I think.

I wandered everywhere yesterday. Drexel and Penn and South Philadelphia, talking to myself like a well-dressed lunatic, trying to discern the direction of my life. Don’t you also, at some point? Don’t you think aloud because words feel slightly more substantial than unspoken thought? Don’t you also speak to just defy the silence? (To justify the silence?) Perhaps I am the only one to wander past three shuls at once and watch the ones who used to stand there. Has everything changed, or has nothing?

I sleep too much and rest too little. People are desperate. Mannequins are liars.
*
𝐷𝑒𝑎𝑟 𝐺-𝑑,

𝑌𝑜𝑢 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤 𝐼 𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑔𝑒𝑡 𝑚𝑦𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑓 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑜 𝑡𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑏𝑙𝑒 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒𝑠. 𝑇ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝐼 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑎𝑙𝑤𝑎𝑦𝑠 𝑗𝑢𝑚𝑝 𝑓𝑖𝑟𝑠𝑡 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑟𝑢𝑛 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑑, 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑝 𝑖𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑟𝑒𝑒 𝑓𝑒𝑒𝑡 𝑜𝑟 𝑓𝑖𝑓𝑡𝑒𝑒𝑛 ℎ𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑚𝑖𝑙𝑒𝑠.

𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑎 𝑚𝑎𝑛 𝑏𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑎𝑝 𝑡𝑜𝑑𝑎𝑦, 𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑎𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑑𝑖𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝐼 𝑑𝑖𝑑 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝐼 𝑛𝑒𝑒𝑑𝑒𝑑. 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑎 𝑤𝑜𝑚𝑎𝑛 𝑤ℎ𝑜 𝑡𝑎𝑢𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑚𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑑𝑟𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑛𝑜𝑤. 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑤𝑎𝑠, 𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑖𝑡 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑓𝑒𝑙𝑙 𝑡𝑜 𝑝𝑖𝑒𝑐𝑒𝑠, 𝑎 𝑔𝑖𝑟𝑙 𝑤𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑐𝑜𝑤𝑏𝑜𝑦 𝑏𝑜𝑜𝑡𝑠 𝑤ℎ𝑜 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑 𝑤𝑎𝑙𝑘 𝑡ℎ𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ 𝑤𝑖𝑛𝑑𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑚𝑠.

𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑎 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝑠𝑜𝑛𝑔, 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑙𝑜𝑛𝑔 𝑎𝑔𝑜 𝑙𝑎𝑠𝑡 𝑦𝑒𝑎𝑟, 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝐼 𝑛𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑟 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑒 𝑡𝑒𝑎𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑏𝑎𝑡.

𝐼 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑦𝑜𝑢.
*
If I wear a mask, I can walk through where I once lived. If I calculate the distance and do not cross the line, I can look into your eyes. Mine are caked in mud, I think. Up to my left eyebrow. I fell into a creek looking for the world again.

Perhaps I found pieces of it.
*
“We can’t all be like you,” she tells me. “Most of us are stuck in the misery of it. We haven’t found the beauty.”

Beauty? Darling, I fell so hard I didn’t recognize the pieces that remained. It is only because I trust you that I showed you what I found from falling. Is that beautiful?

Perhaps it is.

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