What's mine is ours.
That is the strange thing about flesh and blood. Why do we chalk it all up to the birthing chain? We are all just from dust. We are all "stardust; we are carbon". We have always been more than friends.
When Zach died, I was in chapel dying too. Because we are all dying of addiction and shame--inside and outside of church pews. I woke up to November after a dream about demons. Their faces were clear. They would float in front of me and I would speak to them and they would evaporate in thin air. Startled awake by a rattling space heater, 2:30 p.m. met me wedged between the crevices of a half-folded twin bed. I pried myself out before looking at my phone.
1 voice mail from Miranda:
"Zach's dead."
His flannel had this great smell of dandelion tea and cigarettes. And the smell that was his--was ours.
I know I won't forget.
Norman courses through my veins like the Red River. It is as blue as oxygen--as thick as water. And they say blood is thicker than water. But, I think my blood relatives have been thinning out for years. They are pills
And pills
And pills
And empty bottles.
Blame it on the western drought. Blame it on abuse. Blame it on manipulation. Blame it on poor excuses. It is what it is. They are what they are. We are what they're not.
Once, Ciera and I drove through the Taco Bell window. I spotted her for a cheesy potato burrito and some cinnamon twists. She'd spent all her money on hash brownies which Bear (her labrador) had inconveniently located in the front pocket of her backpack. The Mary Poppins mother in me writhed as we turned onto Robinson. Until she said: "Thanks for spotting me. You always have my back." But, you know I do. I always have.
I do.
We are composed of mismatched figures, dwindling bank accounts and poor decisions. We are all searching for God.
And when I almost married the biggest mistake of my life, Ciera told me I didn't have to.
What's. Mine. Is. Ours.
She shattered Detroit into a million pieces. She's always shattering cold, glass ceilings with her warmth.
Tap Tap Tap.
Jon's a yogi now. His anger transcended the atmosphere in a thick, red, smoke. It hovered over the Glass Mountains as the thighs of a lavender Oklahoma sky swallowed them whole. And as Radical Face came on and we let October into our veins, I knew attempted suicides were only futile attempts of escape...so we let them go. We let them go. And we all slept in the same bed that night, holding onto each other like orphans. Because that's what Lost Boys do. That's what Lost Boys who find each other
Do.
Sometimes, the Nashville cool kids eat me out like vultures. Here. Take more, take more, take more. They look at me like what's mine can be theirs, or what's mine can't just be mine. I hate them.
Dear Norman,
You are sexual addiction, and homosexuality, and drugs, and booze, and pills. You are slit wrists, and broken dreams, and promises that never will come to fruition. Dear Norman, you are shared bed with strangers, and demons who dance in front of my face and doors. You are the cold spot in a warm August, and the isolation of divorce. Dear Norman, you are a long walk home over train tracks, between the friction and fray of chaffing jeans between my thighs that expand and contract with my binge eating. You are the transgressions. You are the iniquities.
Dear Norman,
You are a warm wool. You weave me together like stockings for the poor. I slide up their legs. I roll back down once more. I get intimate with fingertips and nail beds as they dig at me and pull me back up to knees that knock together--through wanderings. Dear Norman, you are the softness of my mother...her strength and her fragility. Dear Norman, you are love making in fall weather, and the sound of halting summers ricochetting out of the barrel of baritone players. You are the sound of the whistle, the smell of grass, the sunburn on my face after marching and marching and marching through toil. You are the broken reeds, the acrylic between my 17 and 18, the tile floor of a cold room that makes me feel awake.
Dear Norman, I don't forsake you.
What's mine is ours.
This is.
