Ten Things I Can’t Live Without
For D’Lo
1. It’s two a.m. and we’ve been talking for hours now. I’m falling asleep but I know that it’s my strength you’re counting on. Because that’s what we have: each other’s strength. So, I turn on one more lamp in my winter dark bedroom, sit up against the wall, press the phone closer to my ear.
2. I developed thick calluses on my heels when I was only ten years old. Years later, I learned that calluses block chi. Years later, I learned that calluses are important. I like to walk barefoot on beaches, on grass, in mud. To feel my heels soften against the earth.
3. A poem is breath between letters, cadence, song, lyric, verse. Regardless of shape or form, I cannot live without poetry.
4. Chocolate.
5. As kids my brothers and I used to tell the joke over and over again. The one about the turtle crossing the road. Over and over, we’d burst into fits of laughter before even finishing the question. Why [laughter] did the turtle [laughter] cross [laughter] the road? [laughter] [laughter] [laughter]
6. The secrets locked inside our bodies. My own and hers.
7. Dancing is each step a mark on soil undone by other marks on soil, arms closer to the moon, feet among stars, a breath drawn from the depths of mirrors, up through eternity, waiting for dawn.
8. Because I was born on an island. Because when I was six months old, the water’s pulse was stronger than my own. Because it’s where we come from. Because of that fan coral I once saw. Because the color blue out there among the reefs still makes me cry. Because of all those dreams in which I live along its depths.
9. Beauty: Abandoned train yards in winter. Fields of bluebonnets and paintbrush. Lagoons, rivers, waterfalls. Beauty: Dawn. Dusk. Dragonflies. Deserts. Dew. Beauty: The sun on rocks. A golden forest. Deer. Beauty: lives just under my skin, makes my blood slow, makes me cry.
10. Each time you ask me about my life and I get to tell you a story. Something about adventures. Something about life, and near misses. What I ate and the way the flavors shaped themselves around my tongue. The things I’ve seen/heard/tasted/smelled which I share with you in any way I can just so that I really see/hear/taste and smell them. When you ask, and I get to tell you. I’m Here. Right here. Where I’ve always been. Right here next to you.
February 16, 2011
9.40pm
New Haven, CT
