Everything looks so different from the other side of the road.

I went to the grocery store the other day, but also three years ago I’m sure and

I stumbled into a man within those temporal preservative walls. He was loading some sort of Michael Pollan-condemenation into his cart and

Then I saw him again. 13 minutes later as I confronted my car to leave that oil-slicked lot.

It was such a rush. I had a clearer image of his psyche. I knew what vehicle he put Oreos into on Friday mornings.

You could say he had the exact same understanding of me too if he had been paying attention but I could guarantee that he wasn’t because

People with trucks never pay attention.

Mabel died last year and I didn’t realize how much capacity I had to grieve an inanimate object

Until I watched her get towed away into that misty horizon, as if to remind me how good it is to be alive.

Now I drive her distant cousin, a few times removed

In this sudden fabrication of wealth and commitment.

I named her Labelle because I still have one singular claw hooked to the childhood that I wish I could miss

And I avoid driving her at all costs.

That’s dramatic because I know I’m not really agoraphobic yet and I’m quite the cyclist— I’ve been told it’s pure logic appended to motion but

Good god, a new car is so shiny.

And there are so many rules!

Never more than now did I realize how absolutely luxurious it was to be able to floor it head-on into a concrete wall without the fear of starving. Not that I’ve ever done that or anything.

But like I said, everything looks so different on the other side of the same slab of asphalt.

Everything feels so topsy-turvy because I’m living this life I’ve never lived before and will never live again.

When I was younger I used to write because I had so much anger and pain and gayness consuming every fiber of my stupid little body and

I couldnt bear the graphite marks my book carried, it was my juice cleanse without all of the swallowing and pissing but I remember

when I filled up my book and I thought

That’s it?

Is that all there is to filling a book?

I let someone read it once and they mailed it back to me from across state lines and disconnected their phone entirely

And so I think I kept writing because where else in the universe would I be powerful enough to completely annihilate somebody?

But that’s kind of rancid in the same breath because I’m pretty sure that’s exactly how every genocide that’s ever happened has happened and

then I realize that now I’m on the other side of a new road that I’ve never even seen before.

An entire new precinct. Some echolocation of my mind.

Isn’t that gross?

I went for a walk on Neil Avenue because that’s where I live now and

Because I’ll never live there again

And because I need something to remind me that it’s okay to just scream at the sky and be insignificant and cry over a 2008 Chevy Trailblazer that tried to kill itself every autumn and read all of his letters over again and hold on to these little things that I love.

Because it’s so good to be alive.

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