Crystal Ridge

I don’t go outside very much as of lately

the wind is harsh

and it’s far too quiet.

 

details of rubber

and leather

and newly grown puddles.

 

Before all this

the grass was home.

Feel the water soak through your dense, dirty jeans.

feel it grow dark

spread through your thighs.

 

Hands closely crawling.

 

“I swear that was the same ant we saw yesterday”

 

If you would just look up

you’d see there was more over there.

 

I live in a square

with a monkey in the corner

and Tinkerbell on her bed.

 

Even now a movie plays in the background

I’ll never recall the details.

 

I write quick. Getting too old. too busy.

too scared to dream. My brain wakes up without me now.

 

When I was 9 I wrote in my journal

about what to tell my family if I died.

They found it last weekend, going through the closet.

“How cute”

I was scared then too.

 

I never noticed the light off the courthouse before.

 

look up.

look up.

look up.

 

See the traffic moving down the freeway

 

“where are you going?”

 

that sound

sounds like you

that one night

we started listening.

 

Or the hill

with the wolves patiently waiting at the bottom.

declarations of bold things,

belief in the weeds.

 

“Trespassing? The wolves will get us before anyone else will.”

 

I bet we could hide in that shed.

 

look up.

 

My grammar,

like my posture,

like the grass.