"Will you write a poem about me?"
She actually asked me... "will you write a poem about me?"
I told her that this conversation had entered very dangerous territory.
How many nice poems have I really written about people?
"I know of three" she said.
(Staring). Yep.  Three.  In fifteen years of writing!

And yet...this poem is about her.  
Not just about her.
It's about asking for something about you.
it's about asking for yourself.
It's about asking for hugs and attention and monogamy and a bunch of other things that you know I don't give.
You have to take them.
If you want anything more than a gesunsheit from me after you sneeze you have to rip it out of my ******* talons.
I want predators around me.
I want poets around me.
I want wolves around me.
I want beautiful women and caskets full of money.
I want fast cars, large scars, illegal substances and dancers of the pole.
I want truth, and honesty, and confidence.  
I don't want someone who "achieves their goals".
I want someone who rips a hole in the space time continuum with their teeth and spits it back out to create new dimensions for those ******* sliders to show up in.
I want a relationship of promises that were never made and words that didn't need to be spoken.
No half truths or small talk.
It's better to ask forgiveness than permission.  This has always been my motto.

And I love you.
I do.
But you should never ask me to write about you.

"That's outrageous!" He said.
"You're a ******* fool" I muttered.
That's pennies on the dream.
If you think that the four dollars
   And 29 cents is for a piece of plastic with some ink and a ballpoint then you're probably just making a grocery list.
A pen  is not for scribbling to do lists.
There is an app for that.

A pen is for unlocking dreams and opening windows.
It's for recording the nightmares and victories of a life worth living.
If you don't have PTSD from one thing or another by 28, then you aren't living right.

"You're a madman" he chuckled.
Maybe so.
But I think the price is worth it.

I've been off the road about 8 years now, but I still find a need to sit by rivers.
Maybe it's a hobo thing.
Rivers provide water for drinking and washing.
They provide fish for eating and white noise for sleeping.
They take care of all those who take the time to stop and acknowledge them.
And yet, a river never stops for you.
She doesn't even slow down.
Trains and people and love affairs all slow down.
Rivers just keep moving downstream, and they don't look back.

She hugged me, and I breathed in deep.
Better than any perfume or cologne in the world, I know that smell.
It's the scent of a thousand lost boy summers fighting pirates and chasing shadows.
It's rust dust and rail yards and campfire smoke.
It's gypsy smiles and moldy locks and secrets whispered through the trees.
It's waking up to gentle words from complete strangers we connected with the night before.
It's the scent of broken lips and battered kisses the morning after sturgis.
It's the sun glistening off an oil stain on the highway.
It's the scent of river washed clothes and ticks and lice and fleas and kids named after all those things.

It's a scent of secret love affairs, and ****** exploration and anarchist propaganda.
It's the smell of the E.L.F. And the Crimethinc. Ex Workers Collective. It's the smell of the Wobblies.

But mainly, it's a smell that reminds me that they are still out there, laying in wait, in the shadows of the broken fence in the rail yard. Arms willing to hold you and fight for you, and never let you go.

A black miniskirt and a ****** band shirt.
She's wearing the same thing as the last time I saw her in Missoula.
And Chicago before that.
Two wandering souls with the same flight pattern.
No matter where I went, that's where I was.
And so was she.
Chicago, Illinois.
Brattleboro, Vermont.
A rooftop in Philadelphia.
A graveyard in Iowa.
shes another ghost on this highway.
She bums a smoke,
We share a kiss,
And she's gone.

As a reformed anonymist, I'm not one to look down on drunks.
But today at the bar, I looked up at one and saw a beautiful disaster.
Long dreaded hippie girls have a soft spot in the corner of my heart. From the patchwork dresses to the oxymorons of a vegan ****** addict, I've loved many.

But it's sad to watch someone create themselves through liquor.
To create a persona through drugs because that's "counter cultural."
To create another line of ******* about not wanting to be a robot.  
A message so timeless and repetitive that it's...

She was actually kind of personable.
The few times that day she could speak, she was even funny.
She carried herself with a grace that was quite remarkable for someone who could barely stand.
But she was on the run.
From a halfway house.
From a boy friend.
From a drug.
From herself.

There's no truly meeting someone who is already halfway out the door and already in the bag.

There was a desperation in her smile that I've seen before in my own reflection.
I don't believe in God.
But if you do, say a prayer for her.
I believe it's worth it.