This is the Road I Walk 2.

            Just a week before the storm, Chris, Jake and I are on the rocks in Lincoln, behind the movie theatre just trying to kill time. The rocks making such a tiny fuss of a cliff face were amber like a desert without the cacti. We stood facing the paved road of industry. A bitter cold Phoenix Arizona. A city poisoned—the water saturated with bright little pills. The “happy” kind. I know where this road leads and I am glad that the chase is over.

To kill time before our movie Chris, Jake[1] and I watch from the rocks the road in front of us as the lights begin to glow behind us. This industrial desert. Phoenix.  Las Vegas. Santa Fe. These places no longer rise. But collapse under the tar and cancer. On the rocks behind the movie theatre, we stand and watch them die.

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[1] The one and only in the world. 

We wanted wings

The question arises as we sit on the couch and Chris is playing Madden on Jake’s flat screen. I perch in the white recliner and we wonder,

            “What if we died a long time ago?”

            “So this is Heaven?”

            “Yeah man. We are angels.”

            “We’ve already died and that’s why we question death.”

            “Because this is Heaven and we are disappointed.”

We find conclusions for our questions and pass around the good root. I find an answer for what I had been asking myself for years. Except our discussion ends quickly and I know I will begin to find holes in the walls we had securely built around our beings. Then I’d climb out and find myself defenseless in the open. 

Thought Process

          I find myself growing ever more despondent.

          My thoughts no longer clear when spoken aloud

          I do not understand.

          I do not understand why these words spoken are important but I long for conversation.

          I want more than just mouth words.

          I ride braincycles around my head, wheels constantly turning

          Winding down narrow alleys of broken thoughts.

I am only explaining this as others have found me more disconnected than usual lately. The problem is I have had a lot on my mind and it's been getting harder and harder to put my thoughts into words. Writing my thoughts has also proven difficult. While I understand what's going on up there in my brain, once everything hits the page, it no longer makes sense. For example:

I wonder if anyone ever really looks at themselves.

Do we all see ourselves as so different from everyone else?

I look at myself and only I know myself.

Others see things that I cannot, but only I am ever with myself at all times.

My boyfriend sees different parts of me than his friends, who see a side my friends at school don’t, who see me differently from the poets I talk to and the only people who could ever know me as well as myself but ever refusing to do so is my family.

People have warped opinions about who I am.

And though I like to believe that I am ever so observant and can understand things about a person that they cannot, I will never truly know who someone is unless they are my family. Even then I can be wrong. 

I think myself into these existential circles going around and around trying to pick out every detail and get it right, but there's so much going on that it all gets mixed up and so when I think I have it figured out, I find another hole in the wall. I just wish I knew that I wasn't the only one to think in such a difficult process. It makes having simple conversation impossible. 

Maneraq 1.

In Alaska, the Inuits have over a hundred words to describe different types of snow. For example qanik is falling snow while anijo means snow on the ground. Hiko or tsiko in some dialects is ice. Tsikut describes large broken up masses of ice; hikuliaq equals thin ice. Maneraq or smooth ice. My favorite being akuvijarjuak: thin ice on the sea[1]. I learn this in a cultural anthropology class during a brief discussion of linguistics. When I go to look this up later, the internet claims that linguist and artic explorer** Franz Boaz is a liar. He was only guessing when he shared this information with the world but I believe he told the truth. Otherwise, I would not have words to give you.

The word for Rhode Island’s blizzard of 2013 is Nemo—someone had named the storm as if it were a hurricane. Supplies were wiped out of grocery stores and gas stations the day before the snow came. People began calling the storm by another name, Snowpocalypse. We were expected to receive two feet.

Thursday night I watch the news and it tells me this. I decide to hole up in my boyfriend’s house in a vain attempt towards conforming to fear[2]. I have realized that for the most part, there’s never anything to be afraid of. Everything so far has worked out pretty well and so a mere blizzard cannot effect on my chances. It is important in my depression for me to state this to someone. Otherwise I’d be like I was—when I thought dying was a good idea.

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[1] From Cecil Adams, February 16, 1979

[2] Really, I just wanted an excuse to spend an entire weekend in his bed without his parents getting irked.