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This is for my daughter, who has always loved to go too fast, and too high. Every summer your shrieks reeled out from the roller coaster, in equal parts joy and terror, charmed by those wild forces. Remember when you cried because we couldn’t save that one tiny kitten? Now it’s you who requires saving. You, who cannot abide to be alone, and you, so easily convinced by boys and men. I found you sleeping once, in a house of trash and graffiti. Your hair was feathered across your cheek, and for just one moment, I could not bear to wake you. I’d been looking for two days, and I was overcome by an urge to shake you hard. You were probably dreaming of cotton candy but the room smelled like whiskey and old cigarettes and I realized that I had forgotten to tell you that carnivals aren’t as much fun in the light of day. There are cords to trip over, stinking cans with circling flies, and men with spaces for teeth who are happy to spend your last dollar. The carnival is over. Please come home now. 
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Inside of here, I hold on too tightly Fisted clenched and toes curled, I white-knuckle my way through this life. I cannot wear this skin well, I don’t know how to rest these bones, and it is so hard to walk through this world when nothing lasts long enough for this greedy heart. Love puts its ear to the ground and listens closely. It knows my weaknesses. I’ve always been worried, secretly, that love would take me down. Sideswipe me out of nowhere, knock me to the ground, knees bleeding and tears streaming. That it would reduce me to something lesser than. Desperate and clutching, like my mother. Broken and spent, like so many others. I’ll have none of that, thank you very much. And so I have spent a lifetime practicing the art of taking leave. I have rehearsed goodbyes the way one would approach the piano. I take out the crumpled sheet music, flatten it with open palms and take a deep breathe before I begin. I say so long over and over again sort of like when I learned my multiplication tables. You times me equals 69 and fireworks of the best sort. I know my math is a little creative. Sweetheart, I thought the scrambled eggs were delicious just don’t make plans too far into the future because I’m scratching fondness and farewell onto dead leaves, matchbooks, bar napkins, and the palms of each one of my lovers. I slip out in the quiet hours of the night leaving notes in eyeliner that say things like catch you later thanks for the French fries and the fuck you’re awesome. smiley face One must practice goodbyes. Stand in front of the mirror and try them out. Do this every day for many years. Part ways with the graffiti and the dirty snow, with warm lips and kisses in the dark our clouds of breath spreading like haloes in the streetlight. Walk away from tulip bulbs warming in the ground like small furry fists. Abandon the lover who stroked your cheek as if it were a newborn baby just placed in her arms. Turn your back on that deep sinking black of day leeching into night as the ocean laps at your skin. And in the morning run. Run like a river raging full in spring and do your best not to look up at the windswept sky so full of tears and loss signaling the storm to come which will surely take you away from me. So tonight, I will do what I must. I will wrap my arms around you, lick my love song into your ear, and then I will tell you goodbye before you have a chance to leave me.  Oh, how sweet it would be to move to safety, but I cannot tear myself away. I crave salt water today, not on my skin but in my soul. I’m a desert creature now, but I need to wash the grit from my teeth. Yes, I know the waters are weighted and oil slick, as thick as dripping whales gliding in ponderous silence. Dazzling, this ability to muffle the sound of my own heart. It is bright, that unholy silence. Quieting ever thing including the one thing that is always, always on the tip of my tongue. Why is your pillow encased in frost each morning? This is important. Is it because you cling so tightly to the night? Is it because my love is not warm enough? I clap my hands together until the sound is exactly that of coins falling into a parking meter, of the world shaking itself loose of its axis and then I raise my voice in song, sustaining that one note until I can hear the whoosh of everything that came before you folding in upon itself an origami seagull with practical wings. I will it to fly away and miraculously, it does mirrored in the ocean below.  I want to tell you about a bridge that has been slouching across a 4-lane highway for so many autumns that spray paint slopped by moonlight is a gift. On one side, small rain-damp houses quicksilver bugs hand-me-down cars thrift store couches mothers worn ragged from jobs with green glass ashtrays on their desks, smoke sifting through their mascara as they type. Fathers, mostly memory, missing since we don’t remember when. On the other side, more of the same. Once when I was thirteen I sat in the middle. The bridge held me while the sky gave me its heart. Trucks moved below and summer began its slow burn. My feet were pendulums ticking toward somewhere that wasn’t here. Bear with me. I want to tell you something about happiness - that it is shaped like a wooden bowl and moves like a flock of birds. I want to tell you something about mental illness - that we didn’t have words for it, but that it doesn’t need a summons to seep into the bloodstream while nobody will look it in the eye. I want to stand on that bridge again, to see if it can still work that kind of magic.  |
Who am I?I’m a systems engineer and creative coach living in ABQ, NM. I believe that we can intentionally design our lives to align with our deepest dreams and desires. 
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