The nightmare continues!
Another installment, and I let it keep going
last night we drank ***** and lemonade
and joked about oceanic trenches
he can name all the trees
and I know what goes on deep below the surface
I think we both wish it was the opposite.

He says I’m the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen
and that he’ll never love anyone
the way he loves me –
and that in his poems, I’m a natural disaster:
so he got one thing right:
my ability to desecrate.

She loves him! And he loves me,
and I want nothing to do with any of it –
I pretend, although I am afraid
that I pull all the strings
reality is a sick attempt
at the six-year question:
I can’t untangle myself from the mess
the layers of mistakes that lead to now.

So I go on a bike ride
I look up to see the sycamores
I love the big leafless trees that hug the riverbanks
the Potomac is overflowing, fast and brown
my bike is rusted and clouds hang heavy
in the sky, but I beat the raindrops
and maybe I beat the nightmare, too.

I waited in line at a gas station today
Behind a rowdy crowd of people shouting numbers, throwing hands in the air
And causing a scene
Like an auction gone awry
Just so I could put $30 on pump twelve.
When it was finally my turn at the counter
I heard my phone ring.
I looked at the screen
And saw your name.
I answered
And heard your voice.


I drove away from the pump
With a gallon of milk
And a full tank of gas
And went home to collect my jackpot.