honeydunce

Renee and I will hit the road for Cleveland on August 18th. To keep it simple I will say this: we’re quite excited
about it. It’s been a while since our words have been hosted as guests in another city, another community.
We traveled a bit in the past through slam but that was different–a very specific kind of venture, and we
were younger. I’d like to say as writers we are stronger and we have a better grip on the wanting-it-so-badly
part. I look forward to being in a room full of strangers, shaking hands, sharing stories. Life is so short and
the world is so big and writing keeps me going. A rambly equation for me to solve but it works.

I’ve been thinking about things that maybe I’m still to foolish to ignore. Like death and going, how this instant is so
brief and the harder I hold it the more it struggles for me to let it go. I think about how it is inevitable and I
don’t want the inevitable, feels like the very breath is fighting against it. My drum still here and going strong.
I cannot stand to be so afraid of something beyond me. I want to read everything I can get my hands on.
Want to walk into the room over and over again and see that grin for the first time. You know, live.

At the end of this month I’ll be one year without drinking alcohol–I no longer possess any social ties to the elixir.
Along with sobriety returned a fear, some fear of the lack of control around me in certain scenarios. I’ve had
to think about the past again, think about where the defense first took its form. Possibly staying up all night
listening to the Smiths at the Ryburn apartment. I don’t know. It isn’t a welcome kind of reflection–it just has
to happen. I feel like the odd man out but I’m okay with it. Now I walk away. I’ve gone through dramatic
examples of what it can do to you…and god forbid I criticize my survival, but I don’t think people get that.
Maybe I just come along as bitter and hostile. I let that go too. I’m too old to start caring about what others
think. Out of my orbit.

I own no complacence, but I’m getting the itch to go. I’m watching the world move and twist and change around me–
yellow getting more yellow, buildings beginning new. I want to move and twist and change too. Staying may
not be the answer, and I’ve started on the homework early–first step being the imagining. Another
neighborhood, another state. Closer to the bloodline. I’m eyeballing the chem trail of the journey behind me.
Wherever I’ll go, I will be there–a classic sentiment that used to do its best to haunt me–now it’s a comfort
to turn another corner and know I can be wherever I put myself. Where is the placing?

The person who brought me to this city is moving away, and friends are married, and the stack of papers and
poems grows. The sun has faded all of the curtains and I tend to hum under the cicadas. I’m all on fire and
motioning water. Just enjoying it. This summer has been something. I’m twelve shades of dark and trying to
save money. I’m all full of questions and catching myself saying a lot of “when I was your age,” or referring to the
young-20’s as “kids.” Walking slower. Tango with the old dilemma of stay laying down and try to sleep or get up
and write your guts out. You know, living.