Your soul is lodged in my throat,
as I drive through memories
littered on Seattle streets.
Sun-bleached and threadbare
like my favorite shirt—
familiar, frayed, and holy.
But half-lost in the glare of change.
The flashes of familiarity
are pushed back by the
crackhead on the curb,
the disturbed woman
twirling nunchucks on
a residential street,
and no parking anywhere.
I wanted to visit Twice Sold Tales
still open after a dozen years
and pretend the great philosophers
we poured over
but were too young to fully understand
is all that matters in a dystopian world
that we both feared would manifest.
It feels absurd
to arrive now,
for work
seventeen years later
and only now in this moment realize–
it’s June.
Twelve days from the day you left.
In the city we loved.
Grief whispers quieter,
except in the dark,
when the night is too still
and I swear I hear
you humming Pink Floyd
through the silence.
So much of the core of me
comes from you.
You flung yourself
at life like it was
a spinning carnival ride
and dared me to follow.
I did.
I do.
Even now.
I drive past places
I half-remember,
unsure if time rewrote them
or just me.
Even if the roads blur and
the over cast sky forgets your name
I still feel you there
waiting for me
in Montauk.
Chestnut Cowboy 