THINGS THAT HAPPENED IN MY ABSENCE:
Houses I Have Come to Possess: 1. It's a quaint little cottage. What am I doing? Paying rent, washing dishes and (simply and impossibly) growing up? Thinking perhaps this burgeoning-adult-thing is all a great big sham.
Grand Escapes I Have Managed: 3. Memphis and Nashville, Tennessee. Currently writing from Madison, Wisconsin.
People I Have Kissed: 5. The most recent of whom I have become extraordinarily attached to in a short period of time. This is self-defeating, I know, as he leaves for San Francisco in one week. Leaving: the most stubborn of themes. Being left: I guess I'm good at it. A boy who worries what poem he will leave behind.
Parents I Have Reunited With: 1. But not in the way you would think. It has been five months since I last spoke to my mother. My possible-father, too, has remained something of an enigma. But I recently received an email from an almost-parent. Which is to say, the man I mistakenly believed my whole life to be my father--up until a year ago when I discovered he was not. Our communication is strange, given the 18-year misunderstanding of our roles. He owns a pecan orchard and works on an oil rig. I find comfort in his words but do not know what to call him. Somewhere between father and ghost. A reimagined myth.
Things I Did Not Realize I Loved: Perhaps Innumerable, Recalculating Everyday. The Midwest. Herman Melville. Drawing compasses on the bodies of sweet-mouthed boys. Big black dogs. Driving on the interstate. Explaining the American South to Others. Aural letters in which a best friend reads Le Petit Prince aloud to me. Kale. Antonio Saura. Writing poetry to Django Reinhardt. Dancing silly to Thelonious Monk. Pineapple curry. Cold showers. Looking up famous writers in the yellow pages and writing letters to them, without knowing if they are they. Lists as opposed to lengthy ruminations--how they function like memories. Bison, as they are the fleshy incarnation of my newfound obsession with Minotaurs. The word ambergris.
1 comment:
where are you now?
you are so scattered.
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