What is a Text?

A lifetime later, I still constantly wonder

what you think of me now

Everything I do and think and see is you

or something I need you to think or see with me

I read an article this morning

"Your Brain on Fiction" by Annie Paul

Which of course reminded me of Annie Hall

and I wondered if you knew what that was

or that it's my favorite movie now

What do you know about anything I do?

What were you thinking that time:
I got your old signature tattooed on my wrist
or the time I called your mother for the first time
since I’d been able to ask for you over the phone
or how about when she gave me your old clothes
and the Om symbol with Ganesh in its middle
what about when I had that God awful boyfriend
who got a one way ticket to India the day we broke up
him using your memory to get to me was so vile
but the next day I was in your real home country
what were you thinking when Anku and I giggled
much like we used to do, recalling our antics
How familiar I must have looked to you then
in the back of your mom’s SUV, grinning
How hard did you laugh when we got to dinner
and I announced my vegetarianism
and Usha said only “but you’re an American”?
because my new friends laughed pretty hard
I hope what your mother told me isn’t true
and that my tears haven’t kept you earth bound
at least not against your will....
I want only to remain your soul vacation
http://fromcheapseat.blogspot.com/

even their God was underwater

"Home sweet home", my mother said

as we pulled off the exit to Homestead

and started making our way further south

If we were going to live on an island

it could at least have been a real one, 

Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Fiji for Chrissake

What kind of island can you drive to?

Passing swamp, billboards, and wreaths

marking car accidents

If I had known better I'd have felt more seeing them

being that The Accident was happening

In a few long days I'd remember, disbelieving,

how full of angst I'd been over something like moving

Now my afternoons were full of blank stares

half hearted prayers to Jesus and Oprah Winfrey alike

and clutching the shirt of yours I found in my bag

If I resented my mother before, I hated her now

mostly for finding ways to smile once or twice a day

All I kept wondering was if you could see me, hear me

know how much I was missing and needing you

Ultimately that didn't matter much

being that you couldn't let me know

Ten years later, I'd be in California

with a new girl whose name started with P

five letters long, small but strong, 

like you

She'd hold me now since you couldn't

and I'd still wonder if you were holding me too



http://textdontwalk.blogspot.com/2012/10/dive.html

life felt pointless, like lines leading nowhere

No sound is more familiar to a kid

then the glaring response of a parent

saying only "because I said so"

And so it was for me

That was that

We were leaving

Again.

No matter that I'd found you

No matter that life was good

or that I had one for once

a full one, for the first time

The road was too tempting

the local men too disappointing

So we were headed Southeast

Home.

That's where Mom said we would go

and where I said we'd be leaving

Words could be argued, sure

but we were going either way

"because I said so"

You and your mom gave me gifts

a sweet goodbye card from a shop

and a possession so very prized

it has never been unwrapped

Years later your mom told me

that it rained the three days that we drove

You could not be consoled, but kept saying

"the gods are crying, Mom, they're crying

because she left"

She never told me what she said in reply

and I wonder to this day 

From within my mother's Honda

I harbored anxiety, manifested in

an "uneasy feeling in my stomach.

The kind you get when you realize

you actually have no control" 

Little did I know then, in that car,

that such feelings were only beginning

From there they Jes Grew

soon enough my skin would crawl

my heart would ache

my voice would retire

the words of strangers and family alike

would become meaningless

mere Mumbo Jumbo

to a hurting near-teenager

without a soul to call friend

http://feelingcopasetic.blogspot.com/

A summer well spent

We didn't know then what a cliche it was

but the summer seemed full of possibility

Finally, we were free agents let loose

to do whatever we could find worth doing

Away from all the normal kids with their

normal families, names, and crosses

we could just be us

I had never been so enamored with anyone

Sixty sleepless sleepovers later and I still

had hundreds of questions for you

We could never seem to talk enough

your mother said we laughed too much

and we'd both seen each other cry

When we tired of our trips to the park

and preteen movie marathons

we took to a better reality

We read through Harry Potter books

slouched against your closet walls

cloaked in clothes hung overhead

At school, preacher's kids had glared at us:

two hell-bound Hermione types

but now it was summer

We could brush up on our spells all afternoon

ever perfecting our British accents 

We could never be foreign enough

In preparation for Fall, we even invented

our very own written language

Inspired by hieroglyphics, we ensured

that none of the locals would ever

really know us…

at least not by our notes

http://iboughtmyeyes.blogspot.com/

Only your origins were stranger than my own

Of all the places we could have ended up

this one automatically qualified itself as

The Shittiest

Nothing made the place distinct

save its utter lack of distinction 

even the people's speech lacked it,

their syllables inseparable

Some of the kids had two names said like one

no one was sisterless or brotherless like me

and everyone had a cross necklace

they even called it Christmas break here

the last thing this town wanted to be was

God Forsaken

in my house we didn't call God Jesus

and we didn't go to church

I kept that to myself

it was cold but not snowy

there were hills but no mountains

the trees were big but bare

and The Ocean was a myth

you were gone when I arrived

but by the time you returned

I needed to know you:

the other foreigner

they gave me four different names for you

no one knew which was right

it wasn't English 

and you weren't American

you returned with painted hands

and I listened the hardest I ever had

when you told me your name

I would not be like them

within days I was in your house

which was in another country

though just down the street

it smelled of spices I knew I'd never smelled

and worried I'd soon have to eat

music came from your sattelite TV

and it sounded so purposely harsh

the nasal voices wailed as if in pain

you introduced me to a few of your gods-

their images terrified me 

but I couldn't look away

even I was shocked to see your main god

was a living, breathing man

he had an afro and wore orange

we dotted our foreheads

and played dress-up

you were the only person

I wanted to be anything like