fire season

When I was eight I watched the running of the bulls in Spain on TV and cried in bed that night. I remember the red and the way they ran without their own intention. When I was small I built a fort in the city out of my stepdads’s old army jackets and a floor of the cheap bamboo mats my mom would buy for the park concerts at Harriet Island.

I was born near the sea and my eyes are grey like storms sometimes.

I was raised in the midwest plains where the lakes match the skies sometimes.

Before we moved to the suburbs there was a neighborhood fight and I was always afraid to walk to the bus stop. When I was seven a swat team broke down the back door while we were bedazzling baseball hats. Something about mistaken identity and wrong intention. Somebody should tell Adrienne Lenker that it’s cruel to put out another banger album in peak Aries season. Another form of fire.

Will I ever feel grown up?

My friend makes perfect pasta sauce and a salad of fresh arugula and homemade focaccia and sets the tables with so much intention. It cuts deep like the cut on her hand that she tells us not to worry about. I drive back from the south side of town in happy tears every time. Feeling wan and salty swollen at once.

Filled with fire and sea.

So much love all over the place.