Impression

Where there was fear
There is now freedom
Breath flows freely
No more presence of risk
No more seeking insight

The RV smelt so strongly we imagined
Body parts rotting inside
We imagined the dark depths of a gambling
Addicted life
Outside the hooters game slots.
Standing by the ventilators
Second guessing strife.

You were with me then
Before I knew you
Holding my hair back and whispering in my ear
Spreading limbs in an endless tub
I thought about you then.
Back before I was with him.
You were with me as we shopped the
plastic filled aisles

If I were less of a challenge he would have married me by now.

One day
I might impress you.
With the darkest skill of taking on more than one should

She holds her breath now.
Thinking of all the truth and beauty that day had a passed on by
Thinking of the desperate decline
Of attention
Of curiosity
Of genuine repressed anger
Of insatiable feelings

My scalp warms
As if the summer were burning bright above me.
My feet melt to the asphalt
and I’ve become part of the earth.
What if I never move from here.
What if I can’t figure a way out

Will there be more for me to find of myself
across state lines
Beyond counties that bring food
wine and reason for life

Quarter Life

Marmalade skies, you, and a backdrop of cornrow mazes.
This delta river might as well swell to overtake us.
Pills, drills and thrills is the life you built for us.
Repetition, long winded and sure throated.
My insides feel bloated.

When we were so much younger we sought out pumpkin patches and clung to traditions
 too scared to let adulthood take us.
Scared to see what depth a hollow holiday might carry for us.
We spent the rest of our college years
Struggling to find meaning
Then once meaning was evaded we walked into life with only an inclining of feeling jaded.

Filming bars at early morning twilight.
Talking to bartenders
Making friends with one eyed patrons.

There’s a shift between naive reality and reality itself.
Like when we realized the truck drivers would end their day like anyone else,
with a glass of whiskey and a smoke.
Except their day ended at 4 in the morning
After driving all night
And we all wondered why they are so susceptible to stroke.

It’s a lonely road some would say.
Others would tell stories of how they’d pass the time
One finger flicking ash away.
We stood on the corner then, nothing but flat land around us.
We stomped in the sewer drain and the flooding nearly drown us.

Parked cars and piled leaves.
Do you remember when he grabbed for me?
As if this weight didn’t carry bad memory.
We came here to expand our reality.