broken sticks & broken stones

…will turn to dust just like our bones, again. 
It's words that hurt the most, now isn't it?

Tonight I drove across the bridge from Vancouver into Portland with the full moon bleeding yellow, looking the way I imagine Yellowstone smells. Like something dangerous, about to implode. The radio tried to tell me a story about loving people’s rough edges, but only half of me was paying attention. The other half was headrush hung; suspended between city lights and stars the way bridges span land masses, or separate sky and water.

The moon and music and the way roads grind under tires always make me lonely in a forgettable way. Like the times you want to tell someone about That One Thing and how it reminded you of them. Except you don’t have their number anymore because shit happens. Because you don’t know them now, and maybe you never did.

The path of least resistance is catching up with me again today.

This world is full of triggers, our memories like ammo cartridges waiting to combust. The way hotel lobbies take me back to Denver where I’m chain smoking, hugging my knees and watching the fire the way I can’t watch you. You told me your dad still think about her sometimes, says she was his biggest regret. I wondered if you’d be my biggest regret, and sometimes I still wonder but less often since the birds came back from wherever birds go.

I have so many totems, good luck charms collected alongside memories: a piece of string around my left wrist, stuffed rabbit for good luck, mood rings and bracelets and tiny keys all assimilated into my story. My ring has been on my lover’s nightstand four days now. I feel off balance every time I gesture with my hands. I don’t even know what I miss anymore.  

I don’t know where I’m going with this. I just know I needed to let you know I’m still alive. I needed to let you know That One Thing reminded me of you, and I hope you’re still breathing. I want you to know the only constant these days is a sense that everything is temporary, and that’s ok. I don’t cry anymore, and that’s ok too.

If you get a chance tonight, go look at the moon. You won’t regret it.

Many miles of love.

-b