We watch movies with dinner and count. Pack pack prepare and we’re still hour long days away. Every day I look out the window (class, living room, bus,) and see brick walls. All walls. All walls with eyes, on faces and buildings and cars going by. Just stop it for a minute, stop making me aware I’m walking down the street. Aware of how I look all the time, every day, aware of talking on my phone around you, reading my book next to you. Stop picking me out with your eyes, and just let me not care. You make me more aware of my big feet and unenthusiastic hair than all my days in Golspie. Dixie Chick songs about free and space yell on my inside ipod as I think, soon enough (though jesus, not soon enough) I will open my eyes and look at ocean. Open my eyes and see the dog running scared from the waves. See Rob trying to chef up a bonfire and food from the water. A big American road running ahead of me, taking us closer to whatever home they assign us. Whatever home lets all our feet and claws conglomerate in a happy, exhausted heap. A new desert (old deserts, new eyes). New sheets and shampoo. A steering wheel for me and new me for you. I mark off the days on the outside windowsill of school, peer down at the concrete, and now focus on the strangely placed cherry blossom since it grew out of nowhere. Strange in it’s courtyard of walls and back windows, doing nothing but fall onto that dirty black car. When it seems like I will sit always in these rooms, failing to be their teacher or their friend, I’ll mark it off on the edge of the desk too. It makes me feel better when I can count it away more than just once a day.
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