i can’t bring myself to look at the last of alaska photos. so instead, here’s shades state park in indiana
there was a thunderstorm coming
also these are actually in color, i haven’t mucked with them
check that cliff
i’m back.
1:
So. I’m living on an island of ~600 people.
Remote. Rural.
There aren’t any Mexicans or black people. Pretty much just natives and whites, and a Korean family.
There is no restaurant, bar, or coffee shop.
You can’t drive to get here.
I’ve been here two weeks.
Start praying for me.
2:
I did it. I flew across the country by myself.
And I didn’t die.
I got trained by these people who really seem to care.
I heard horror stories about poverty, and what it means,
And what it looks like.
It was just depressing.
I told a girl on the bus ride over to the plane this,
And she said, it wasn’t depressing, it made me want to do something.
A something that will be useless.
3:
I’ve never talked so much about where I’m from, until I’m not there anymore.
Because I assume people would know what I was talking about.
But now they don’t.
They’ve never been to KFC, or seen movies in a theater.
I’m an outsider, for the first time, a person who wasn’t born here, who didn’t grow up here.
And I don’t fit in, for a good reason. But it’s the first time I don’t fit in with a good excuse.
4:
I may or may not have had a thing with the only other person I know here.
I drank PBR because he was drinking PBR.
And I had to tell him about my claustrophobia.
That you can’t trap me with your arms.
And that I had to ask my friend before we went any further.
He fell asleep. I had to control my breathing.
5:
Packages take two weeks to get here.
The dump is a pile of trash they light on fire every once in a while,
It’s where all the bald eagles are.
There are miles of logging roads people go “cruising” on.
I’m so alone.
6:
A loaf of bread costs $3.50, the cheap, white kind.
You can’t fill up your gas tank past half-full,
They have a fuel stealing problem.
I have 4G, though, and Amazon Prime.
There’s an airport for seaplanes,
And commercial fishing,
And alcohol. So much alcohol.
7:
My mother called me,
My uncle visited and saw grandma before she died,
My brother asked a girl to the prom, she said no.
My sister’s visit was nice, but short, and they have communication problems.
My stepdad is having more dementia and skin cancer.
My mom still has no external support system.
8:
She was analyzing me,
Like I wasn’t me,
It was as if I was a test, an experiment, like when we were kids,
And she was trying out reactions, seeing how far she could push me, before I’d get upset.
She did it on the phone,
Practicing her counseling techniques,
One step away from, well how does that make you feels.
It sounds as though…
I hear that you’re…
Well what do you want from this situation …
What’s your best outcome.
I remember why I no longer confide.
9:
I watched basketball.
Instead.
I quit my part-time other job this week.
I’m officially under-employed, qualified for SNAP, and poor.
Tired and poor.
What have I done?
these were taken back in march. red trees are creepy to me, makes me wonder what color the sap would be.
if i were a person who liked to fish, i assume this would be the sense of peace i searched for
this appeals to me visually. if i explain it i think it will make the weird tree bark magic go away. i have no clue why i like this. blah, blah no accounting for tastes or whatevs.
the dead fraying bark looks like corn husks. i never thought there could be more than two shades of brown.
i went out looking for signs of spring. instead i found these pale colored leaves, bleached, but hanging on.
i like this semi-see through color they have, not quite white, but a transparent pale yellow.
no buds on the tree yet, no signs of the their replacements in sight.
Some Bad Plankton 