Ice storms

We used to have these ice storms

We would go out afterwards

Play football in the driveway

Ride our bikes

Trying not to wreck

Pretending to Rally Race

Skin our elbows and knees until they bled

——

I always wanted to be a football player…

——

We burned some trees in our back yard and I remember the heat…

Sometimes it felt like things couldn’t get hotter than that.

——

And then you sit down and try to write

And that vulnerable

That nakedness

Staring at you on the page

It’s like a woman opening up to you

Or letting you go down on her

Really opening up

Vulnerability

If you don’t honor that

What are you?

—/

You try to write

You don’t want to whine

You don’t want to echo

And you don’t know

It feels like we are all saying the same things

You feel out of place

The wrong year

The wrong life

What do you do with your time

Someone told me they were falling out of love

It was like trying to catch rain in a cup

Is anything sacred like intimacy?

I just keep writing

Because I can’t stop

They say that one day

You wake up and it’s off

Like love

It just leaves the room

But I keep being that romantic

I keep getting up

Saying good morning beauty

And writing anyway ….

I know that one day, one morning,

I’ll be closer anyway

One day, one morning, I’ll put my guards away.