I travel the topography of California.
Each landmark, a cemetery.
Each monument, a headstone.
Each turning point, a ghost.
If memory is finite,
then every time I move
across these roads,
I am stealing something
from myself.
Or we are thieves,
continuously
stealing something
from each other.
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I.
Beyond the Jeffrey pines,
where the mountain stretches up
to the sky.
You would find me along the river,
burrowed in the basin.
You would find me along the lake,
buried in the snow.
Once, you drove for days
caught in a storm that I crafted
with my own hands.
Even though you made it through
to the other side,
you could never save me
from myself.
You could never save me
from my own mind.
II.
Nestled in the rolling hills
of wheat,
the place where language was made up once.
How your skin would turn the color
of honey in the sun.
How you told me that this stretch
of highway would always remind you of me.
Does it still?
III.
You were of the sea
but I always hated the beach.
We never talked about love
because you would have never
been able to hear it.
The sound of the waves
drowned out everything
as they crashed against the
bluffs of your fragile mind.
Your pain as big as the ocean,
coming and going like the tide.
Until you receded so far
away from me that the
water never brought you back in.
How I hope that you are still alive.
IV.
Out amongst the tallest trees on earth,
your eyes covered me like moss
that blanketed the forest floor.
The vastness of the redwood grove
as spacious as all the miles
we thought we could bridge.
Your love like a fog that
descended into the trees and
obscured everything for a second,
a mist so fine you aren't sure if you
can really feel it,
until it is finally lifted
by the light.
V.
In the east,
the desert wind
sings your name.
Out in the long valley,
the air dries out our minds
but the blood still pools in our
hearts,
each long road begins
and ends
in our hands
held gently atop my thigh.
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