santos scribes

he cannot bear it
the thought of himself young & curious, unfinished
refuses even to look at what he dare create before he understood what he understands so effortlessly now –
and so this under ripe version of this beautiful man & his brilliant mind sits buried and still
worth less somehow to him now.

our differing opinions surprise me here
we create & suffer the same but different details
and yet i do not suffer past imaginative iterations of myself
rather i long a bit more for her each day
am thirsty to pour over & comb through the versions of stephanie who dare try and make sense of the people and the world around her long before she dare call herself a writer- an artist maybe, even still.

i once wrote a poem called ‘Dot.’
about a woman called dot i’d come to know unexpectedly and briefly
a thick pile of winters ago
the memory of this poem makes me want to call it up-
carve time to be with it now,
with the years and the lifetimes between us
i’d like to pour it a steaming cup of elderberry tea from the electric kettle
place a firm, soft pillow behind its low back
tell it to speak slowly, to take its time, that there is no rush to understand
to feel what it felt like living a 26 year olds life next to that of a dying 69 year olds
between those busy, musted garden level walls
while the washers washed and the dryers dried
in the belly of the haunting yellow house on the hill (my god.)

our time comes to pass and the revisit begins to feel like a homecoming
another black dress i’ve kept & love
have no intention of giving away though it no longer fits
“Dot.” causes me to recognize myself in ways not possible then
when did i stop capitalizing things?
stop writing in ink?
was i born trying to please everyone, speaking in semi-colons?
what is clear to me, is this: i am trying to land, even still
to catch some fleeting piece of forever
so i can tell you about it before we each have to let it all go.