Expatriette in...

in this particular july stritch in time, i walked around in circles, in my head and in the street and in the past and took the same shortcut to the future over and over again. i woke you up and you walked with me too in all the same places. my parents followed us in a black truck and like the cusack brand of the silver screen, it started to rain. we kept walking and i kept yelling about the wild west and medical things. & i remember you walking next me like water. you had that same beautiful kind of calm strength that you have, the kind that can slip through fingers and hold up a ship & it was exactly what i needed. the street lights cast our bodies onto the cement street & we saw the same shadows we've seen on those streets since we were 16 years old. isn't so nice to be met with that kind of consistency? the shadows mourn and worry and laugh at absurd things and laugh more at more absurd things for us, like we do- & like we will for eelternity. jenna, thank you for your friendship and your love. happy birthday, my dear friend. i want to be as dependable in your life as midwest club cul-de-sacs and our shadows under the first summer sun and the tan lines that follow. you've talked me down from so many little ledges \\\ & you are the prettiest, miss.hindi. teach your students just a hundredth of what you've taught me and i'd say they're going to do just fine.