Been a while, y'all

"What happened, happened once. So now it's best/ in memory--- [...] Love's/ merciless, the way it travels in/ and keeps emitting light. Beside the stove/ we ate an orange. And there were purple flowers/ on the table. And we still had hours." - from "Stolen Moments" by Kim Addonizio

What's the point? Love, merciless, sometimes breaking, sometimes bind-

ing together blind-

ness or nesting itself inside my insecurities--or better yet, can you help me think?

I need words big enough so nobody can actually understand how I feel about anything because life is

inherently

boring. Don't think

that this is going to work out, and I am thinking about being bent over

a balcony

23 stories above with someone I don't know

but maybe we will get married instead of all the other plans I've made. My concern

feels light.

What's happening now?

There's no light here anymore. Nothing anymore, there is is more

than the light just traveling out of me, more than ever

mercilessly I am cutting

you off. I am not explaining myself. 

Time's up. Timing was a word

explaining nothing instead of all the words

I should have given you. We only had

a balcony. And hours.

Because my Windows finally roll down....

Keep playing that sweet song on repeat.

Aww, yeah. Just like that.

I am riding in your car, I am riding in my own. I am sitting in the back of a car sharing secrets with a boy with blue eyes. I am sitting in a black car singing songs written by women. I am singing one of the only 80's song I like. I am filling up my gas tank just to listen to music while driving a blue car that now belongs to somebody who soon will have to get close to the way death looks. It's nobody's fault. I am alone in my own car for two hours there, two hours back each weekend working to "make money" but really just because I liked to go. I was driving drunk people home. I was sixteen. I was eleven in a red car and Kristyn's sister is also blonde and she is telling us about correct stereotypes and learning to drive. I am in a car with somebody I barely know. I am in a cab for the first time ever in the middle of Italy. I am falling asleep to the beating of bus tires. I am believing my mother's most famous lie about seatbelts. I am crying, probably. I am nowhere to be found, because I don't talk on the phone while I drive. I don't break laws. I am in the backseat of a black car and my boyfriend almost gets stabbed. I'm not with him but I remember him. I am talking to God because I like my church on four wheels and no bucket seats. I'm driving a minivan. I'm best friends with Austin MacKain and we're going to Carrollton. I'm listening to Cara sing about the blood all over the floor while a dog sings in the backseat. I am smelling the ocean with my favorite Innocent. I am crying, probably. I am trying to drive a stick shift but I'm not meant for this. I'm watching the way Katie taps her thumbs. We're listening to Grateful Dead, every single morning. We're alive to something good. I'm parking funny because I loved that last song. I'm okay. Jim's taking me to waffle house because he has a license now. I'm scared because my cat knows my car is about to explode. I'm screaming because I realized somebody farted in my car. I'm throwing up outside of this rental one. I'm throwing up again, for different reasons. I'm waiting in line and every boy in this car is really attractive. I'm asking Tom if we can listen to that Jimmy Eat World song again. I'm kissing that blue eyed boy, but sometimes we're both crying, too. I'm going to Tennessee. I'm not going anywhere. I'm parked and missing you. I'm watching the state lines change with the landscape and thanking God for your grace, and His. I'm loud. I'm doing my own thing. I'm changing the station because I'm, okay, maybe just a little embarrassed. My mom is even singing on the way home from Six Flags--- it's Sunday so this song is exactly the right one. I'm holding hands all over America. Eric is my cousin: he reads all the signs. We are making up stories about the moon following us. We're listening to a book on tape. We hate this station. We grew up. I listen to talk radio alone. I listen to static on accident. I cry hardest in my car. I'm not afraid to be alone. I like having something to cry about. I'm not emotional, just awkwardly designed for a world that wants to define me by my tears. I let him kiss me in a car. I don't know why. We fell in love somewhere between blanket forts and an airport parking deck. There is fog sometimes. I'm not sorry about it. I love the way we were in cars, dancing or singing, or making a mess of who we could be, in favor of who we are. Britta cleaned my car. She made me a photo album. We are remembering that this is enough - we, the me in all of it, is realizing you can pick just one--- and it's a life. And it's all of the things. Like how Forrest had shoes. Like how other people have other things. Like I have all of them. Like how I am a lucky one. Like how I might be the luckiest. Like how good people are to me. Like how bad that makes me feel. Like how good it is to know that no matter what, you are doing a great job, and you're exactly where you should be. And you're so good. And this song is so good. And the car is so comfortable. And we can talk all night. And you can cry, even if you're a boy, and they tell you not to. Because this is my car. And we like it this way. And we're going places, forever, and ever, and ever.

Because of You.

Floating in something less than spacious and singing Britney Spears songs at 9 in the morning, I am more in love with my happiness than I ever have been comfortable with before. Not all things are reconciled, but I am reconciled with that fact of my life. I am not seeking out a finite peace, but I am at peace and in love with the chaos within me. Though this is often the source of my lows, or something like that, it is not something that bothers me--- it is something of me that I have grown to love and not feel consumes or drowns me, but inspires and awakens me. I am tolerant of this mechanism, long limbs reaching out like sun through pines behind my house back in Georgia to wrap around and hold me until I am aware of my exact darkness. I am walking with God through the places  I have been and telling Him what I can remember of those places, and trying to express my side of the story without explaining myself too much. He laughs at the way I say certain words like "you" and "fear" but we are already ten steps ahead of anyone who wouldn't want to understand anyway. Don't worry. It's not a big deal.

(This is the part where we just have a conversation, and learn not to tell anyone else about it. People sometimes wait for you to say something they can judge. Some people...)

 I am just like you sometimes. I see this in blue and brown and green eyes all around me and I can't seem to explain to anyone else that there is something so dear to me as the way somebody looks at you when they see you for the first time, really.