Day 2

64

’04-‘05

If I remember, clearly
I remember you
Violent and volatile
Everything I wanted
to get myself into

So I hopped on
student ID and all
$1.35-transit-money-swag in my step
when I had to

First year of high school
first time I ever gave into numbness
You probably met me
for the first time at night
I know you met me in darkness

In stillness,
at a time when
everything was nothing.
When darkness
on a late bus home with no excuse
didn’t speed my heartbeats
Barely moved my brain to conjure
up an explanation as to why
I was on my way home so late

We met in stillness,
numbness,
darkness.
But in passing
You were a point of transition
A transit point
You have always been
You still are
But back then I was moving ,
running too fast to see it
Running too much off at the mouth

Montgomery Village
is a place of fascination
for a young girl with
too much speed in her step
Not enough in her heart

Just moving into
her 1st real neighborhood,
HOA and all
Trying so immensely hard
to reclaim things she never had,
never lost,
never needed

Looking
for reasons
she still doesn’t know,
to gain things
she still doesn’t have

Big mouthed
3X Tee’d and Sweat Panted out
Buoyant banter about
how little it would take
to fuck a bitch up
I don’t know
who soaked who in
who was sitting in who
I just know we were both
running away from
where we had been
Seemingly in circles
And whenever
I got off
you always came
just in time
for me to get on again

Next time sleek and sexy
with as much self loathing
As could fit into
that special pair of jeans

Fickle,
dried, and empty
As slim as a
5’10 170 lb girl
could be in tight jeans
tight eyes
and a tight grip
on loose morals
Sin in my step,
it was easy

To be beautiful
and broodingly obnoxious
Riding you
Like my sister said
I couldn’t
‘Cuz I wasn’t allowed
to go to the Village like I did
looking for boyfriends
whose total
would add up to zero,
would mean nothing

Still
I stayed
She died
And with
no one to draw me
away from you
I left

You came back
You always came back

’06-‘07

Junior year
Met me
in a less nice neighborhood
In a different location
I’m in a different place now
We were not as cordial
I stop pretending not to know you now
It has been sometime

1st day of school
I think you may have left me,
purposefully
6:00 am outside, cold, and waiting
To get me back for leaving
Or maybe
my behavioral eating disorder figure,
gallantly wrapped in perfect attire
new sense of passion,
new fervor
For how they say life should be lived,
Cashier job,
and stack of AP textbooks
was too much for you to hold
And you didn’t want to disappoint me

But you came back,
eventually
Like you always do.

When Moms got remarried for the 1st time,
trying to fill a void
And left me behind
You were there to pick me up
And dropped me off in neighborhoods
actually in my school district

I let you see me hurt in the worst ways,
On days when I didn’t sleep,
didn’t eat, or ate too much
Even on days
when it was too much to handle,
and you passed me by,
you always found it in you
to come back
On schedule,
most of the time

That year my ego found itself
shifting under the threat
of kids younger than me
You sitting in me
Both of us became heavier
under the weight of carrying
I got weak
tried to fall
In love with a self and another
Both distant
Both failed at
Found a nomad complex
Lost my house
And kept (it) moving
To say,
“Im leaving again,
but I’ll be back,
I’ll always come back”

2008

Some many houses later
I came back,
like I said I would
This time
With a car and
my foot drawn to
and change now for
gas
for moving quickly
As I have gotten accustomed to

I live in the Village now
in the location that made us meet

You came back
In darkness,
the same place where I met you
Evening being
the only times I could catch you,
in passing,
could lose you
Always one of us
chasing the other
Not saying anything
But keeping it a lot more real
than when we didn’t see each other

The booming thunder in your throat
And the silent hum of my engine
Said everything
The stirring loco.motion of us both now
Revealed what movement had made us
How crazy moving made me
Moving,
neither of us keeping up with each other
But you did catch me,
eventually

Senior spring marked
love through poetry for us
Properly picking up
where you used to drop me off
In your sentimentality
remembering how you shuffled me
through school districts
You shuffled me to D.istricts of C.onsciousness

Bringing culture towards country
Black to Africa
it was only proper
you took me deeper into the same place
I was looking for before

Sitting in you again
with stillness,
Stale stillness of settling
within myself
Finding myself not being too far after all
Having never been lost
Newness in ancient, stillness
Keeping love somewhere distant
on my list of places to get to
Having already been there
Having been being there
So present searching would have been
superfluous,
the old, not ancient, me

Summer
You truly became a sanctuary
Summer nights
if I met you I’d thank God
I would be home on time
You led me on journeys
to recognizing
my ancestry,
my divinity
in ways many wont want to believe in
to understand

No one can stand
the sight of a healing woman
like you can
‘Cuz you know how much I’ve earned it


(Its) 2009

I left again,
came back like I always have
Back with none of the same things
you sent me off to college with,
and yet…

Trying to pretend I never left,
that you’ve stood still
but you’ve grown a little bourgeoisie
like how I found out the hard way
that you don’t use transfers anymore

They say you don’t know
what you’ve got ‘til its gone
I didn’t get it till I saw you leaving today

How you transitioned girls
from the hoodest parts of the suburbs,
the only ones
in their neighborhoods renting
and only ones
that actually had to use the bus
To a place where they were not
the outcasts of in betweens

Transitioned me into a place
I could learn to love
a place I am still discovering

Transitioned me
from falling in love
writing poems inside you
to falling in love with poems
to write you into

Recently taking rides in you
I have seen my mother
shine a different shade
No one could ever stand
the sight of a healing woman like you
Remarried a 2nd time
she is not leaving me behind,
emotionally,
or physically this time
Connecticut will be some different
types of rides away
A different type of keeping it moving
I wont be back
the same way
We may only meet again,
in passing

I could tell you
that I will remember you,
and you will heal from everything
we have had
And that if you lose yourself
you will come back
Like you always do
Like you always have

But this is not a love poem
And I cannot be sentimental
about a bus and how much
of this ride it has taken me en route to