honeydunce

Driving through my home town at dusk, knowing my way better than I know anything. Stopping in the middle of the street
to stare. Kissing two fingers and holding them out the window when I leave. Of course I’m sentimental for it, of course
I come back and mourn what isn’t there anymore(the fact it’s gone reminds me I left, that there was a departure, that
time has passed, that I’m not the same). All of these things could crush or lift you. That’s the decision you make.

The simultaneous remembering and forgetting–that this is just a body and my limbs are constantly flailed out living on
their own trust–that my hands owe my feet nothing. That if I’m constantly too careful then I miss out.

Addicted and petrified by the pen, still shaking behind microphones. That I’m still carrying around a wrinkled post card
of Janis that Jim gave me years ago. Nine, to be exact. And I’m not the person he handed it to but I am a thousand
times over more than I can claim it.

Explaining to my therapist that it isn’t a means of seeking pleasure for me, it never has been. I get that–I can point it out if
asked, but it isn’t just pleasure. I tell her it’s movement, something like inspiration, something like witnessing and
being there. Things can barely ever be untwisted. I’ll take my moments like seaweed when forward motion means
walking out from the pull of waves.

I have memories backlit by a shadow of a water tower. A group of us on our backs, touching heads beneath it, dreams of
climbing in and swimming away. The rusted one next to the new. Leaning into a neck on the side of the gas station,
losing an artifact in my youth–the parents going back to the grounds to find it, coming back empty-handed. The crest
of hill where you can see the entire town.

I never so badly wanted to live my life, never felt so certain that I’m doing just that.