Wow. Talk about things not going as planned.
I had this idea of what this blog would look like. I had this idea of what my life would look like. Traveling the world, working as a sports physical therapist for Olympic athletes. And yet, I find myself back in Madison, Mississippi, surrendering to the fact that I am not in control of this life. And you know what, that is ok.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned to listen to my inner wisdom–you know, that “gut feeling” that I’m learning is connected to something outside myself. And for many reasons, my gut told me that China wasn’t right, at least not right now.
My ego took a blow, that’s for sure. I won’t lie: pride is something I struggle with a lot of days. This need to validate myself with external things. I grew up thinking that my worth depended on accolades and achievements, letters behind my name. But I’m recognizing that pride is just another form of fear–fear and control and wanting things to go my way.
When I allow myself to surrender to that something outside myself, that gut feeling, that life force–when I give over my will and let something greater take charge, that’s when everything falls into place.
So I’m starting anew. My whole life, for as long as I can remember, I’ve been drawn to writing. Something about pen on paper, the way words can sift and change and make you feel. So, this blog is getting a makeover. Instead of its original purpose, to document my life abroad, I’m using it to share one of my passions: writing. I’m embracing vulnerability and doing something that speaks to me.
Today, I’m sharing a few poems. This blog is a work in progress, but I’m letting go and seeing what it turns into.
Things that remember me:
morning dew in between toes
and the way that road
was broken. The only thing
to make you cry,
even though I tried,
many times.
Have you forgotten
the race up-stairs
and mom’s straw-colored hair?
How she pulled it back
always reminded me of
timing. How it unfolds
in songs you heard
a time or two ago–
The times they are a-changing–
and wouldn’t it be nice
to catch what blew in the wind
when Dylan went and wrote
lines worth unwinding.
I Hate Poetry
I hate poetry
How when you’re twenty-one
It’s somehow wrong to rhyme
Even though every time I write of you
I think of Varsity Blues and how I said
“I love you” first.
I hate poetry
Because I can’t just say “I’m sad.”
That doesn’t mean as much
As saying, “The way you left
Makes me feel as empty as an Amarillo sky,”
Even though I’ve never been to Texas
(They’d never ask me why).
And I hate how I never know where to break
My lines just like
I never knew how to break
Our time.
Sometimes I just want to break the rules
Like I did with you
And say:
I remember the black and white nights when you parked
At the end of my driveway with your headlights off
Even though I couldn’t see because
Who keeps lights on at night in the middle of Mississippi?
And I remember that ring you bought me
How it made me think of staying here
And pints of beer on Saturday nights
And red-lipped blondes that define wives–
The kind I’d never be–
Because I wasn’t ever quite right
For Mississippi.
And sometimes I think of Yazoo clay
Beneath my feet as we climbed the top
Of a deer stand in camouflaged pants
Your father made me wear
Even though he knew I didn’t believe
In killing deer.
And the way you put your gun away
When he drove off in that truck
To find a better clearing
Where he didn’t have to talk to me
Or joke about my legs
And how they weren’t quite like Brittany’s.
But if I said all that the way I should
I don’t think anyone would see the good-
It’s all just words.
They’d tell me to write fiction instead
And cross my fingers that someone would pick it up.
But I hate poetry–didn’t you know?
I hate not knowing all the rules to break
Because without them I make my own.
And breaking your own rules
Is always worse
Than breaking ones
You didn’t make up.
Escape
They say you can’t catch fire
But tonight I caught it in a jar
With holes punched at the top
And as I stood bathed by stars
I thought it was a feat
That I captured fire
And yet it was I
Who could not escape.
Like that summer when I was caught
Between twenty and not too young
And managed to slip up just enough
To blur that perfect slate
Because you told me my hair was long enough
To get out of tickets only men gave anyway.
And how still the next morning
You pushed Jose Cuervo
Into a palm reflecting red
From an alarm that wouldn’t ring
For another hour.
How you told me it was ok
To drive slowly to the stadium
And park crooked in a spot they marked “reserved”
Because we were pretty girls.
I think of that Florida game
When you watched the team walk out
And threw your string of pearls
Forgetting they belonged to your grandmother
How we only thought to laugh
And stumble toward those tents
Where I pretended to care
When parents saw you flirt with all the fathers
To see who had enough whisky on his breath
That we could ask for sips from bottles
Tucked inside boots their wives had polished
Earlier that day.
You would pick out boys
You thought I should approach
But I would only shake my head
And point out how they stuck flasks
Between girls’ breasts
And how mine weren’t big enough.
You’d laugh that southern boys
Couldn’t be men until they’d dipped
Or held bloody antlers in both hands
Or bought their first Ford pickup truck.
You taught me everything I know
About Dixie and what it means to
Call this home.
And so last night I thought of you
And how your cheeks never burned
Even under an August sun
As we sat on bleachers singeing
Exposed thighs and eating
Barbecue just because we could,
You and I.
How you told me not to blot off grease
Because it was better this way:
Eating barbecue in dresses and drinking pitchers
Because, you told me,
Boys always like it
When you can’t escape.
Unfit.
He cuts like sand on broken skin
Or Kansas wind–sharp
And hard to keep.
His words, they bleed, and I can’t be
An ear for their hypocrisy.
He says the words, but they fall deaf,
As actions can’t confirm their depth.
He lacks the courage to admit
That we were never meant to fit.
2008.
Every time I hear that song I think of him
And summers when the road was ours
And cars could get us anywhere
I think of weathered hands on steering wheels
And stolen glances from cheap shades
And restless fingers reaching for my face
I feel the evening on my legs
Stretching out in country grass
The way he stops to look at me
And asks if I’m okay
His voice is soft but harsh
Under stars that seem so innocent
And when I pause to answer him
He silences me with a kiss.
The Road.
There is a road that I know well
Made up of broken sunlight and headlights from old
Boyfriends’ trucks. It’s pieced together haphazardly
And glued by memories and the mistakes that made you you.
This road is lined by remnants of honeysuckle
Dew from yesterday and rain from the skies
That were eaten up by the night.
It’s here I laid my faults, burying them in the reflections of the stars
So as not to disturb reality. You see, I’d buried all my history.
So now this road sees barefoot paths and scars from
Walking down with mason jars full of poisons we thought
Were only rites of passage. We used to catch fireflies
In the same glass and hold them up as lanterns
To light the path down that road to freedom. But once that road
Became a bridge from youth to seventeen something changed.
And suddenly its only right was to hide me from the moon’s spotlight
As I ran to meet him under midnight shadows.
We littered the road with cigarettes and smoke from arguments
That never lasted long. We picked up the debris with fingers
That stretched like the Pleiades and embers
From the butts of tobacco.
When everything changed.
When you looked at me and said you’d killed a man at twenty-three I only blinked
Then after weeks of muted calls and tempered talks, I pictured you–
Your car, a faded blue, and weathered leather cracked by Mississippi sun.
Your glasses hanging carelessly and rearview reflections of your immodesty
As you turned to push back your hair.
Your jeans and the way they hugged each curve
Of time long spent on dusty baseball fields
Your skin tanned unpurposefully with flecks of burns
You’d unexpectedly acquired.
I pictured this as you, moments before that afternoon
When everything changed.
One step away
Rain tastes like last Saturday
When you were away
And all I could think to play
Was my broken ukulele.
I wondered why our last mistake
Came before you thought to say hello
And suddenly I’m thinking
Isn’t it funny to see your name
And touch your face (by mistake)
And drive you back to my place
Where you thought those years could all be solved
By rain and guitar strings and the way
You looked at me. But think again–
Lately, those times have changed.
It seems to me we were just one step away,
One last break
One breathless name.
Opposite of goodbye
Remember how we ran
Across your dad’s land
To your truck, the way
I almost got stuck climbing
Out your window.
Remember the way we laughed
As we drank from tin cans
And awarded ourselves for
Being young then.
Remember, when it all changed?
When he said she said
Became a game
And who you laid with
And with whom you stayed
Became just more
Plays to make.
I remember that day.
It rained. And you-
You stained my lips
With all your “what-ifs”
And isn’t it time to let go
Of promises.
I counted the times
I replayed the lines
You told me,
The way you could hold me
The way you’d mold me
To make me fit
Inside your glove.
I’m tired of playing
But I can’t stop chasing
Whatever it was that made me
Crazy, cause all of that
Just reinforced the
Opposite of goodbye.
