sorry

I clear my mornings to take a watercolor class that's way up high in the Santa Cruz hills

I sit on the stool and the sunny too-blue is everywhere

And all I can paint is smoke

The elder on the walker with the funky red eyeglasses peers at my paper and asks me 

is it LA

I say no 

It’s here

I know I should be triaging

my focus is there I swear I swear

Every morning I text my friend Ari whose dad still needs to pay the mortgage on a not-there-now house

I voice memo my friend coco whose dog is peeing on everything even with the extra dog prozac they have at the evacuation shelter

I am donating I swear

And dreaming of abolition the best I can I swear

I am telling my LA clients however they’re surviving that is the exact right way to survive

And you don’t need to have survivor's guilt just for surviving I swear

Or if the guilt is protecting you from the grief and terror below it that’s ok too I swear that’s ok too

But being a therapist is a constant absurd hypocrisy

and guilt is all i breathe 

because i'm breathing happy ocean air because i'm still breathing

I’m so so so so so sorry I swear I’m so sorry

I know I need to know it’s not 2020

when we sat helpless and quarantined in a bowl of burning mountains

I’m time traveling again I’m sorry

To when I bargained with god for air my lungs wouldn't revolt against

To when my feet became ears pressed to the earth’s insides and heard

Not habitable not habitable

And I'm back in the turnstile I’m sorry of

I shouldn’t stay I shouldn’t leave I can’t stay how could I leave

Like before the rains came back

And the complacency came back

And I started snacking on the food in my go bag

I swear I walk by the river and cherish this lush fever dream we still have so much of

I bless the monarch munching on the milkweed 

I tell the hummingbird it’s ok if you fly into my nose that’s fine

And affirm to the otter buoyed belly-up that yes the sea is yours it's yours

I swear I beam everything I know of love to the kids walking home from school

especially the ones studying climate change in science class

and I swear I fall inwards when I see 

their small bodies out of step with their small faces 

like the two aren't tethered like they used to be

The elder in my watercolor class heavy-sighs

Oh your generation is so doomsday about everything

Look around

We’re five hours away from LA

Don’t you want to paint something beautiful?

I answer

Yes

That’s true

You’re right

I’m sorry

thank you/hate you

you were so big even though you were little big i was just little little i get that now

you were frantic over the soft spot in my skull like “mom don’t take her outside! her fontanelle!”

you taught me peanut butter and jelly then i sang it in grandma’s closet on loop but you never said stop just watched and smiled

your skin was gold your limbs stretched bright meanwhile my face was a fluorescent white moon and i wanted to orbit you forever

i needed you a 10 and later when the fighting got bad i thought all my organs would explode

you needed me an 11 which i didn’t know til you started screaming til you never stopped til i saw how blue your veins were in the hospital

on Yom Kippur you called me Hamas demanded ATONE spat that your kids forgot who aunty was

it didn’t start with us it definitely won’t end

but maybe we’ll do zoom therapy anyway with your therapist because that’s the only way you’ll do it i should ask a friend to sit out of view so after they can remind me about reality

blah

my friend said we happened because we're opposites
and we un-happened because we're opposites too

YES THANKS I'M AWARE

on halloween we watched Twister and then Twisters (both good)
i was trying to tell you about how Helen Hunt in a tank top made me gay
and you were trying to tell me that we were just like a tornado
like the sorcery that happens when hot finds cold under the perfectly right/wrong conditions
then spins spins spins all the cows and barn bits around til they're nothing but detritus

and once again, i felt like yes ok I'M VERY AWARE of what we are

so exquisite and unstable

i just thought we didn't say that shit out loud

so then you laughed and i cried and any onlooking god-type character who might play voyeur on our little lives was groaning, ughhhhhhhh seriously? this again?

anyway

it's over

we ended it

no need to groan anymore

and all those nice ideas i had about the storm aftermath calm stuff aren't so
like, i'm not born anew under open skies
or sliced open so good that new life poured out
there was no rescue or reward

it's just quiet

monotonous as fuck, really
back to dishes dishes emails laundry dishes emails

and cosplaying as someone who wants a peaceful life
and judging everyone who shares in CODA meetings
and sleep that doesn't ever last long enough

sweatshirt

i am rationing the smell of you now

your gray gap sweatshirt sits quiet in the corner and
i try to wait to sink my face down into it until
i’m floor-bound until
i absolutely need the high

this is all i have left of you now
the hoodie you peeled from your body as all the water leaked out of mine
a last kindness before you froze over

they’re numbered

these fiber-bound cells of you
these bits of incense and mowed grass and garnier fructis shampoo
these paltry pathways to your butter-soft cheeks, your talisman belly

soon
my nose will have extracted all it could

soon
despite palms pleading
and cilia scrambling
i’ll smell nothing

dad's house

2000s handset on your ear

corkscrew Ashkenazi eyebrows leaping

and that cheek-slicing smile

this is how you always answered the door

your spider limbs would beckon

“oh come in! i just need to wrap up this very important phone call!!!” 

with

grandpa

(estranged)

or your law firm partner 

(you dropped out of law school)

or one of your clients

(Carlos Santana, most likely)

or one of your many buddies on The Hill

(maybe your old friend Hillary, calling to seek political counsel)

with the effort of rearranging bulky furniture

i'd wrestle my facial features into

"wow! what a delightful (yet poignant!) repartee you're having!"

"i am full of belief and respect!"

and mid-threshold

body blurred and bracing

my ear would find it:

the Bob Dylan twanging and

the dial tone, wailing