6.16.23

i returned because i have something to say to you. once i was in the amorphous pull of the world, interlocked with so many others, and then i was floating on the ocean, alone, and then i was walking in the city of our childhood with my sister. 

i remember talking to _____, she told me: i know i want more than this. (this being what is being offered to all of us, young and old. this being what is, and what we are told what always has been. this being the image of revolution, instead of any real spin). yes, i want that too. the things i could want don't shine like they used to. (not after that house we all became ourselves in, not after we scattered from that house like birds). 

returning to writing, i remembered an abandoned project, my so-called catalogue of touch. carefully i tried to document the story of our bodies, just barely, brushing past each other like the wind. i tried to write about california and the only way i could was to remember you. do you remember the fire, the ocean, the drought, the rain? your touch, the entrance. do you remember the people marching in the streets, the national guard outside the supermarket with tanks, the way we needed to touch each other after all that time alone in our houses? and do you remember the people without houses? to get through the days i remembered your hand, your cheek, your elbow, your shoulders, your feet. 

i returned because many women have come to me and said: i'm lonely. i returned because something in my body told me to.