Leaving South

i left alaska. i’m back with my mom.

She drove and gave me another hug.
She gave me a hug twice.
And told me she has a lot of friends, but not a lot of good friends.
And I got on the boat.
And watched it pull away from the dock.
And as we left the rolling hills and pine trees of the pacific northwest,
Driving through the fog dusted mountains on 90,
I kept thinking, turn around, I’m going the wrong way,
This isn’t right.
But I left all the same.
And I cried by myself in the midship deck that used to be a bar,
Crashed on the curved blue couch in the back,
With everything I possesed right there.
Now I have to go to yoga, and move all my stuff out of storage,
And find a job,
And fix my car registration,
And file my taxes
And figure out what the hell to do about my friends and these people I seem to have acquired.
When I just want to hide.
And I want quiet.
And they didn’t give me whipped cream on my smoothie.

I got to Seattle,
And I said the trees don’t look right,
These aren’t my trees.
This isn’t the Tongass.
I want my forest back.
With all its scars and its danger.
It didn’t care that I was this thing,
It didn’t give me a second glance,
But kept going with it’s own life,
I can respect that.

I miss the salmon strips and chips car rides.
Riding out the road with loud music playing,
And one of us sitting in the middle back seat with their arms on the passenger rests
Eating smoked fish with our fingers, skin and all,
And passing around a bag of sunchips,
Talking with our mouths full,
About how much we loved each other.

I remember driving down killer hill at one of the 3 p.m. sunsets
And the world filled with orange,
I thought, it’s almost worth it.
To pay eight dollars a gallon for milk,
And not be able to buy fresh meat at the store.
To know none of these kids stand a chance.
I left on the ferry, going nowhere, back to my mother’s house,
I watched the new terminal pass behind the boat,
Until I couldn’t see the light,
Standing out there with only the die-hard smokers in the cold,
In the jacket I was wearing when we got stuck out the road.
I stood there undecided.

I don’t want my life, my year up north to be some memory I use,
I won’t expose those people, who were good to me,
I wouldn’t do that.
I want it to keep growing, I don’t wan to lose them.
But I didn’t want to stay by myself. I couldn’t.

Poems from My Day (5-24)

just four today

1:
Tomorrow, I go home.
Back to where I’m from at least.
I first take a seaplane from this island, to the capital.
From there, to the lower 48.
Seattle to Chicago,
O’hare to home.
If I keep repeating the steps to myself,
It seems less.
Manageable.
I will not allow myself to break over seeing that many people.
I will be fine.
My heart beat will realize that in a moment.

2:
I wanted to call him up,
Just so I’d have someone to shoot the shit with.
Maybe to see if he’d answer,
But more of a wall,
To bounce my excess energy off of.
And to hear him laugh.

3:
No matter how hard my mother tries,
You can’t manufacture a good time,
I can try praying to the gods of conversation,
Please, oh please,
You strange forces of peace, serenity, interest, and chatter,
Come down upon us in good faith,
And give us those good memories my mother is always talking about.

4:
I don’t really want to see them.
Hang on a second,
I’m looking,
Scanning,
Nope.
I’m not finding any longing in my heart.
Do I have to go home?

The Poems I Wrote Today (November 27th)

I Wrote 10 Poems One After the Other
Day November 27th

Poem 1:
Home for Thanskgiving
But after I moved for school
Dad moved for work
And now I travel four hours to be
Home for Thanksgiving.
He said don’t feel obligated to come and see me
But I think I should, so I did.
And here I am
With all it’s quietness and hot food
In someone else’s house for Thanksgiving.

Poem 2:
He went through so much work for us
Made all these dishes on all these plates I never saw otherwise
This ceremony he takes up, otherwise shunned the pop of cultural
So we ate, but she usually had a cold
And would lean over to say
I can’t taste any of this,
Then tell him how great it all was.
He cooked because his mother cooked on the same day.

Poem 3:
I shouldn’t have been driving
I slept in my daydreams only
And I ran into the snow
Little flakes flew off at first
Then it stuck
I should have pulled over
Kept saying at this one the next exit
Behind blurring red dots of a FedEx guy.
If I’d ‘ve stopped I would have stayed stuck
Like after a while I couldn’t change lanes
Because of the ice in the middle,
Keep yourself there.

Poem 4:
I don’t mind you at all
I won’t have that all consuming passion
But I won’t mind
You’ll be there for a while
You can have me for a bit
Then give all my me back when I leave, please.
I’ll promise to give you back your change.
But I won’t mind, I don’t think.
I never expected to be attached,
Just scared to have no strings.

Poem 5:
And now, it’s been too long since I’ve seen people
I get all jittery
And giggly and I’ve lost all my charms
To be relearned to be with friends
If you’re around the vain who won’t let you talk.
I have to remember I’m worth a glance.
When I see a friend tomorrow.

Poem 6:
I love the space between Thanksgiving and Christmas
Not either of the holidays themselves
But just the stuff that goes around them.
Well I guess why
Is that we all seem to be thinking something like the same thing.
And I feel closer to the girl siting next to me.

Poem 7:
I’m so cold I can’t sleep
I wait for it to take me
So I’m less cold
Or forget I’m cold
Or something
Beyond
It’s cold.

Poem 8:
I flit across a memory
One I don’t want there
My hands freeze up
And I stare at what I was only looking.
I say, I’ll put this in a box
I have a case in my mind full of wands and witches and bits of rubber
They hold all my boxes
Some with extra tape
All the times I’ve fell.

Poem 9:
I need a buffer with me
For most people
Stand over,
Yes, right,
There.
In their way, in front of me.

Poem 10:
The first time I disagreed with my father
I learned I was wrong.
And just how wrong I was
With citations and page references
Footnotes and verse
There was no other option.