Hidden in the bushes, you can trail it by the smoke in someone's backyard. Old smoke, crumbling stone. The kinds of houses that won't see another earthquake. We kindle inside houses that've stood the test of time, already. Me, in my long skirt, fits me snug around the belly now. I seem to have grown into my own. Sun-bitten or kissed? And are my lips as plump and dangerous as they were a year or two ago?
Ad-hoc beers in the poetry room. Eyes like someone who makes me wanna dress the part, and now? Wearing my coats because they fit me best, feeling all snug in my old leather belly. I clutch my pearls when I pass the pigsty now, turn right at the wrong corners, disappear into the hold.
Remember my faces, my youth and my vim, the mysteries hidden inside my skirt. Sitting in the down-light. Running mouths over running tabs. The neighbors talking about their mistress. Harbor for strange confessions, an unusual place for remembering my grandmother's eyes. The trust of burgeoning adultgood.
Adult good? Adulthood. My hood, worn over eyes, over carelessly snipped bangs, over last calls, and frail-remember tomorrows.
The soft camaraderie of the guy behind the bar. Tryina pass brews from faraway ports for something novel, something charmed. That's alright, we'll stick with the regular. The unshakable sense I've met someone before, and how do I know you then? You're too much a pretty boy to have ever been on my radar, and so, what then? Whose are you, dear?
I like the face I make for myself when wanting. Bending over the spill-sticky tables. Chattering over plans, and shared trips, and broken loves. A 40-something man trying to flirt with us by telling us about his grown son. The awkwardness of rain soaking through our soft summer clothes. The undercurrent we's that permeate this write-up. This is a shared place, always, though only for me. This is specific and unordinary.
Though only for me.
Bringing my chocolate coco treats bundled against July heat. Making a mess while laughing more than is good for you, and licking our fingers like they're somebody else's.
They serve their own food now. And so, no need for homemade mead, or improperly packed lunchables. Much has changed. They've added a women's bathroom, which is cozy and clean. Goodbye, squatting over communal bowl, or passing the time reading stranger's stickers when interacting gets to be too much. I remember places less by the drink, and more by the bathrooms I've hidden in. Can't help relishing it, the sliver of quiet amid incessant nighttime talks.
No sailor's boat ever stopped here, it's messy but with a name, which in modern parlance also means a logo and a controlled lilt. It's not dirty in the way I'd want it, but then, neither is my thin, belly-bugging skirt. I can't help but feel, and is it a mirage, the absence of a name keeps me a mystery yet?
Behave like a child, or just like a leech on the ship-shape one-anchor freedom side. Throw my head back in my chair to stare up at the old hellos. The feel of being inside an overgrown kid's backyard prevalent and biting, missing me acutely, filing down my snout.
I like to remember glimpsing the future here. Gifted poetry in the shape of 'you ain't found it yet'. Wishing acutely for more for somebody. The relish and relief of growing up without growing old in a place not designed for you yet. You and me both, kid, you and me both.
Though for some, escape's just a window inside a painted coming-down wall.
It gets cold. I swaddle myself in borrowed cloak and begin to make my way on the long ride home. Limping still as I go. Making space for dusty, old tomorrow, following my wrongs.