I am not gone.
I rest in yellow.
I rest on all of your roads.

Lying still.
Waiting.

But my eyes
are no longer closed.
They tunnel and pierce
the waiting horizon.

For when you come,
even as a mirage,
I will know it is you.

The radio counts miles in static and song.
Three hours of worn-out melodies
and a preacher selling salvation
for nineteen ninety-five, shipping included.

A beautiful billboard lawyer leans forward,
red lips inviting, blouse open
like she's selling more than legal services.
Need a lawyer? Janet Stone will fight for what you deserve.
Justice comes easy, she claims, just call the number.

Time rolls under my tires
like my mother's worn rosary beads.
Exit signs listing faded towns I knew,
before I stopped coming home
for Christmases, birthdays, funerals:
Millersville, Cedar Falls, etc.

The rich green hills fold and unfold
just as I remember,
etched and carved
by this black ribbon highway
that funnels me home.

Half an inch of cold coffee left,
the rest bleeding my white shirt brown.
Twenty miles to the Pine Fork Gas-N-Go
the billboard says,
but I'm tired,
running late,
and wearing my mistake.

Mile marker 247:
I'm thirty minutes from faces
that will ask about my life
like it's the weather.
Safe. Surface. Polite. Prying.

Nothing that acknowledges what we both know.
The only reason I would come back home
is currently at Blackstone Mortuary Services Inc.

Wearing her Sunday best.
Clutching her rosary beads.
Eyes closed.
Lying still.

Helping someone move

is a great adventure with --


a safe homecoming.

The click of the key
the shoes in the cabinet
the slight rustle in the toilet

and intimately the gleam
under the bathroom door, his smell
entering at my feet

I already know how
he slides towards me
carefully warming his hands

under his armpits
to caress me
from sleep to wonderful

and to make me stretch out
in a sea of time
where the wind rises

and hands and mouths
rush unstoppably
till the sky clears

And then
again

I long for the ocean,
I long for the sea.
I long for the stars,
I long for the noise of passing cars.

No quiero vivir donde
My people aren’t elated
Pentru să vin acasă.

I am greeted with tears in their eyes
Își iau avânt să mă întâlnesc căt mai rapid
Estoy envuelto en los abrazos más grandes.

They insist to hold my bags for me,
Una mano en mi espalda y la otra en mi equipaje
Mă ghidează la parcare.

Niciodată întreb pentru o călătorie
Una experiencia impagable por el amor que me rodea.
I always get a pang of emotions even for others experiencing the same with their family.

Never enough time
Niciodată destul timp
Nunca suficiente tiempo.

It’s December and my roommates and I are deeply into Christmas. We’ve got a little 3ft tall Christmas tree with about fifty-thousand little multicolor LED lights on it (LEDs because we ARE saving the planet). We’re in the ‘study period’ right before finals and It’s a lowkey Saturday night.

Lisa and I were pajama’d and gelaxing in our suite’s common room. She was in a tan easy chair and I was slouched on our red corduroy couch, my slippered feet up on a white coffee table. We had a Christmas playlist playing throughout the suite, a ‘Christmas lights of Paris’ Youtube video streaming silently on our TV and cups of Keurig brewed hot-chocolate with little marshmallows.

Leong came out of her room and joined us, taking a seat on the far side of the couch with me. After a moment she stretched-out, putting her head in my lap. I love her jet-black, cornsilk hair and it wasn’t long before I found myself stroking it, a gesture primates have been making since the pleistocene period. When Lisa glanced over at us and smiled, I started making gestures like I was looking for fleas in her hair and eating them - in a silly, momentary comedy lost on Leong.

We got back from November recess a few days ago. After three years together, it was easy, almost automatic, for us to fall back in our rhythms as roommates. On arrival, I glanced through my drawers, ***** clothes and shelves, taking a casual inventory. Everything was as I remembered it but still, everything had the feel of trivial leftovers from some lost civilization.

I got a new M3-iMac, it’s really the best platform for putting docs side by side. The first thing I did was hit ‘restore my setup’ from the cloud. I love futzing with tech - I can remember when that kind of restoration would have taken all day - but fifteen minutes later I could tell from the files on my desktop that everything was restoring nicely.

As I sat back on my office chair watching the restoration, I felt myself relax. THIS was real life, this was how life should be done. No matter what else I’d done or where else I’d gone - this was how my life should be - at school, with friends, facing those challenges. It was a peek-moment.

It was an illusion that my little iMac welcomed me back, like an old friend, as it finished restoring - wasn’t it?

i wanna fall in love in october
so we can have a song written by girl in red
and pretend it was for us

but i'm falling and you're not

i might ask her to
go to homecoming with me
but what if she says