Field School

I search the faces from the passenger seat for your angularity and uneven distribution of freckles. I know I won’t be able to make out the freckles, but thinking about it this way makes you mine, crafts you into a uniqueness that ties you to the grief of prolonged loss. I get to search for you hardest when I am a passenger. A friend taking their turn to drive this week allows me to fruitlessly scan the bodies on Hastings. I am looking for your too-tallness, your swaggered step, your hustle. Dad says you once told him you prefer it here, the “king of the gutters” or some such nonsense. It feels like a game where neither one of you is willing to call the other one’s bluff.

heart jumps

silhouette-come-brother, then:

“another fucking junkie”

I learn what I am capable of -

missing your scent

cigarettes and vomit