Everywhere and Nowhere

As my journey closes I realize that space is all I’ve ever wanted and that I don’t want to feel penned in by place. I don’t need those markers to be comfortable. The simple fact is that I want everything and I want nothing. I want the fleeting and ephemeral and I want it to be a constant. Not as an unchanging presence but as a constantly changing presence, eternal in its ambiguity and beautiful in its uncertainty. I don’t want to stay the same any more than I want to have the same address two months from now. I have tried being comfortable and found it uncomfortable. Like Fiona Apple said in a song, “I’m good at being uncomfortable so I can’t stop changing all the time.” Change is the drug I crave and I want to travel lightly but always be prepared so I keep a toothbrush and passport on my person at all times because you never know where you might end up when you go out for a loaf of bread. The world has spoken to me and I answer with my eyes and my heart and now I know exactly where I want to be. Everywhere and nowhere.

Personal Space

At the start of this experiment

I worry that we will grow tired of each other

in such close quarters.

All shared spaces with multiple uses,

a clever design but with no eye to privacy.

As one week turns into three and then

a month and more and

there is no bickering or petty arguments

about who left the cap off the toothpaste

or on which side of the sink the soap belongs

I realize how ridiculous my fears are

because how can I get sick of my other half?

Best friends since childhood, attached at the hip,

even through long absences, twins born

years apart to different mothers

–there must be some mistake.

But there was no mistake and people come into our lives

when we need them most.

In him I have my brother, my twin,

and we are at home in the world.

Longing for Space

I watch the clock and am waiting anxiously.

My bag was packed days too early and still

I shuffle and reshuffle my belongings,

only one suitcase but it seems like far too much stuff.

I want to be free and unencumbered and

flee in the night with only what I can carry and

this town has always been too small for me.

I am ready to leave as soon as I arrive

and I want to see the world.

When he arrives I am out the door and

not knowing where we’re going is part of the fun.

The big diesel truck eats the miles like candy

and I don’t look back,

the only things that matter are what I see ahead of me.

I roll my window down all the way and the wind

hits my face and I smile because I feel free,

maybe for the first time ever.

I lean back in my seat and let the wind carry me along.