2.15.24

This again. Pressing into each other like flowers on the page; I returned to California, returned to myself, loneliness like a passage full of wind blowing back through me. 

- 

Every day at 3 PM I swim in my childhood pool. It's February and the sun is out. I close my eyes but suddenly it's so bright I can't stand it. I take one step and then another into the cold water. I take a breath and jump. Breaking the surface, it's so cold I hear nothing. If this is only decision I can make today, that is enough. 

All of this is to say: Right now, I love you and nobody else. Like a tuft of hair that won't go down, like a box that won't stay closed. I'm not thinking of the before or after. There's a war we must stop. Everyday my mother gets older. I know this isn't where I'm supposed to be headed. I love you and nobody else.