That the lonely methods she tried to heal by were not

chosen in ignorance but in hope that this, maybe,

finally, will work out. And of course none of them

did, but it wasn’t her fault.

Ignorant isn’t the worst thing a young person can be.

I step out of my body, unfold forgiveness, and hand it

to her, the woman I was at 19.

She smooths down the creases of the page and reads

this:

FOR ANYONE THAT KNEW ME INTIMATELY IN 2017

For a while, words were less of a luxury and more

of a lifeboat. I put baggage into a mouth that felt like

mine and mumbled around the edges of it.

Begged, and begged. I missed her. I missed him.

Love meant less than grief and grief I hardly

understood at all. And you listened, closely

and then not so closely and I don’t blame you.

Everything I felt in 2017 was a different iteration of

the same rage. I wept on the eve of my youth with hot

tears and so much shame. It held me like I hold eggs

in the seconds before cracking. How I held my

stomach during the months where I was too anxious

to buy groceries.

And you told me to eat.

You drove me around the river and we listened

to Paramore. Survival will not be the hardest part.

You sent me letters. You read the book.

You bought a ticket.

Gratitude once overwhelmed me to the point of

silence but I don’t lose balance when I talk about the

past anymore. I may waver, but I remain upright.

I was gone but I promise, I want to stay.

if you remember

anything about me,

i hope it is

how brave i became

in the aftermath.

43.0216° N, 78.9657° W

Usually my memory is more cloudy than not

but every street in my hometown is a bolt

of lightning, forcing me to remember.

The weathered stop signs lining the edges of my first

known world are like a guiding constellation, fiery

with names and faces

I no longer understand the intimacies of.

My car, relearning terrain I granted it a year

to forget, rolls over the tired asphalt where I once held

a white sparkler like an extension of my heart.

Past the sidewalk where I skinned my right knee

trying to catch an ice cream truck that never stopped.

Around Fisherman Landing where Sarah and I would

listen to The Smiths and unpack our grief.

It’s a subtle joy to know

where every pothole lives on a stretch of road.

To know that love is bound to familiarity with yards

and yards of barbed wire.

Oh, the truth is I hated living here until I wasn’t living

here.

Now nostalgia complicates my steering patterns.

I don’t require anything more than an alphabet to

catapult out of my birthplace

but that doesn’t mean I’m not afraid of its hands.