before the next fire season

…Sold my coat when I hit Spokane, bought myself a hard pack of cigarettes in the early morning rain…

…and I texted you, “I’m back from Italy.”

You never replied. When I left I asked if you were going to miss me, and you’d said, “Of course. I’ll just be waiting for you to get back.”

I found myself face down in a ditch. Booze in my hair, blood on my lips. A picture of you, holding a picture of me, in the pocket of my blue jeans ….

I took with me that one picture of you from twenty years ago when you still believed in things…you look so good, is it any wonder you’ve had so many women left and right.

I didn’t try to text again. I suppose if there’s anything I’ve learned about us in all these years–all these decades– is that we’ll always find each other, inspite myself. I used to get so mad, but I’m past all that, but I wish you would have answered because in Venice I had a dream in which kid you was so very mad at me, and I wanted to you to laugh and say, “it was just a dream, I’m not mad at you.” I wanted you to answer so bad because I wanted to tell you, without saying, that a rodeo cowboy went on and broke my city heart, and even the intricate alleyways of Venice I’d lose myself in couldn’t get me to forget the hurt. I wanted to tell you that for a second, I think I kind of knew what love was but we both know.

I ain’t about to go straight , it’s too late. Still don’t know what love is….

I wanted to tell you that I don’t know if city me can live alone on a mountain, just me and the birds, anymore. I wanted to tell you I had to ungirdle a pine on my property, which had barbed wire wrapped around the trunk so tight, it was dying. It looked so cruel, who would do such a thing. I wanted to tell you to sort out your life and come up to help me clean the land up before the next fire season.

And I know you resent my freedom, me taking off alone to the other side of the world while you’re left with a shit storm. But I also know you love me precisely, because in my own way, I’ve done it how I always said I would for better or for worse. I was never going to be a girdled tree.