Laurel Staircase

I declare I’m at it again like the last time meant something. A short walk down the creek and it won’t matter for a bit. Trying to figure out the difference between the subplots. Running loosely, lopping over one another now and again. An affinity for something, or lust, or movement. Bike lights duct-taped to the back.

Top view of a corn maze. Afraid of the hot cider at the police station.

In twos for the safety of it. Incidents are few and far between but we’re all out for fire these days. A compulsion of dreams, heat, comfort. My car stopped working a while ago. Made it all the way to the ocean and then it was on to the back. I keep sand in my pocket to remember the smell. Cave odors still do it for me on occasion, but sometimes I need a reminder.

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You’ve seen it before. Top of the mountain with a brimmed hat and a backpack. Beckoning to the overlook where we watched the fires engulf the mansions. Your mom’s firepit on New Years Eve with my sunglasses, but I wasn’t there. Chris said sometimes I just stay in and watch the suns collide. He wrote it for me to write it for me. Now and again. Waiting for the future life but I am so happy in the downfall. What can happen but one extreme or the next.

Got some fireworks attached to either side of me, if there comes a time I need them. A birthday party or an assault, one or the other, really. One or the other, I repeat to myself a few times. Either/or. Lol. Anyways, S. cut his hair off, or died it deep purple with a beet, or did some many things without me. The problem with giving into the role. I’ll remember to go back to that later.

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I want to move to but it keeps coming and going and the time is never quite right. Caroline came in the other day, mud on her face. Not like I wasn’t expecting it. Went for a walk in the snow and she dropped some down my back. Those things are unrelated.

I keep a matchbox in my coat.

G. says always curl around to be sure. When you get to the cave it’s better to have seen it from the back beforehand. Even if you can’t tell, it does provide some relief. A few days in and it can start to seem like you were never out there to begin with. But then you need fire so the world seems more in line with what you thought it was. That and the more physical necessity of it.

– 2 water bottles

– Lifted infinity sign

– Cloth

– Transparency

– Some olives

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Somehow G. arrived with dried flowers the other week. There are these little holes in the cave floor that remind me of freckles and I stuck them in there. After all these years, how is homemaking still such a requirement for sanity? My mother told me once she was her happiest while cleaning. I said no, it’s cause you can’t sit down for two seconds, but recoiled the statement before it came out. Now here I am sticking flowers in the freckles and seeing the layers as wallpaper. Obviously. I hate myself sometimes. Then I remember I’m actually pretty cool and fuck it, like really, fuck it. G. rubs my back while I think about my mother.

If the cans run out it’s kind of all to do. I’m really not that upset about it, to be honest. Running around with blisters seems a lesser punishment. All food is a feast anyways. We’ve gotten so good at imagining the grand. It’s like, what were we thinking all that time?

Dip into a small feast. Lush reds. Candles up and down. Dissolving food. Some tea afterwards. Sliding down the banister but sliding into each other cause that’s the only way to make contact. Never got a chance to see what it would be like. Here we are.

Then a school of fish and I’m not so thirsty. The tea was good. Freshwater better. Bubbles make every form smile.

❂ Orange Crush

❂ Sparks

❂ Surrender

Loop around and you will find a small entrance. We found this only because of the recent influx of rats. They’re into the dried flowers. It’s pretty cute. I feel like a mom again. 

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When you make it through the past all you can do is list it out. Future timelines that align in the right places and we’re back at it. G. says the plots become pivotal the more people involved. You know this. Every third day there has been a fractured light shining in. We calculate the progression along the cave wall and add it to the list.

The rest should be back soon judging by the markings. All we have to show for it are some buried fish and fermenting beets. Back to thinking about S. and there’s really no point to it anymore. He’s along the coast somewhere but the timelines line up so rarely and then there’s G. Always what it is. Caught up in future vision and I need to stop before I get carried away. You would think so much destruction would take the roles along with it. I always hoped it would. I put them in a timeline where ownership was irrelevant and fire was abundant. We’ll see how it pans out.

– Cast iron skillet

– Braids

– Lime puree

– Collection

– Wool socks

In about a month we can be out in the open without a care. The state has better things to worry about when the weather turns. The light helps as well. No spotlights when brightness is a constant. Internal growth has stunted or maxed out or both so seasons aren’t much more than moods. Core gurglings or slow burns. An excuse to get caught up in the fantasy or delusion or the way it already has been.

Either way, we do what we can to make it seem like keeping post is more than just going deep into what no one else can touch. The fireworks may be celebratory after all. We need it. If anything is true, it’s that. I imagine when I set them off, the world will be rid of fireworks for good. It’s what we’ve been waiting for. 

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Caroline’s movement always preceded my own. Even before her birth. I’ve looked back enough that it seems mundane at this point. I never thought that would be that case. I let the guilt go.

If it had been abduction not carnage I wonder where I’d be. Certainly not in my mind on a hillside with a garden and candle drippings. Probably in bits along the levee. I’d never be able to let it go. Bond in crisis overrides any sense of self.

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Mist as cover. It’s not too small. A lesson in character. Some days I can’t even spell.

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There was a time when all we talked about was television. I wonder if it primed us for whatever this is. Life became so drenched in fears of what was to come that we all had little movies playing in the back of our heads, building a life based off whatever we were being fed. Seeing our reactions ahead of every situation. I was this way when I was 12.

The movies are more vivid now. A wish away and you’re drowning again. If we fight to stay in this reality, it starts to dissipate.

They came back the other night and I was reminded of all this. We’ll have cans till we can move again.

Out of the cloud into the mist. Like the drones at it again and the stomach drop and the marks of light in the periphery. Everyone looks like you now. I think it goes away and it’s back again. Steady reminder I’m not here. I made some promises but you’re dazzling hotels and low back black shirts. I say things and don’t realize they make it worse off. The connection is inescapable but I flounder when it’s not written.

You were fine before you’ll be fine again. The glimpse is enough to drag you out. How you think there’s something better and know there’s something worse. Lift off and watch the tides rise. Take me back to the willow and let me feel fingers in my hair. It’s always a little later that it shows up somewhere else. I’m here to make it safer but I cover the markings with smoke. I watch it all fast forward and look towards the inevitable rewind. I think the thoughts to decide and reel in the need for too much else. Filling up water to fill up water. Ready to watch the movie start to finish.

The spotlights were out last night. Musty air at its height with our combined bodies. We listened to stories from the outside and realized it wouldn’t be too much longer. Joint realization of escape fortifies the need. One or the other. Not so bad.

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Caroline is picking flowers and tying them into knots. I put them around her head and we spin around till we fall. She is a mom in another story. She says she has learned so much. If it allows for reflection it is enough. Where you want to be is unfolding in everyone else. Forge and let it fall.

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I set them off and we watch a star show reflected in the sky. Mist intermingles and the spots convulse. All there is to do now is lie down.