moonlight in an orange grove and vanilla ice cream cones

Everything feels like it’s overflowing. Like I’m chasing after the things that fill up each day and I can’t keep up with it all. Do you know this thing I’m talking about? I have these almost black outs, selective memory and freak moments where I don’t know how I got there. First I’m bike riding on the lake front thinking about that boy I wrote for and how he had night terrors, I see him walking down these grand empty rooms with old sheets covering the furniture. I’m hearing the bells of other bike riders, smiling at a tiny little black girl picking flowers on the side of the road and then the next thing I know I have a brown bag full of groceries wandering some aisle in whole foods, and then I’m throwing up in the lot next to Acadia, asking the french man how much he’s selling his post cards for, singing at the top of my lungs with you when the windows are rolled down on high way forty three, crying in my parent’s bathroom when no one is home and I don’t even know why I drove there in the first place. I keep finding myself in random moments and losing myself in the mess of living uncontrollably, helplessly, smiling even when I feel out of place, listening to people talk because I have nothing to say and I don’t believe in small talk. Handing out cigarettes to the homeless musicians on Decatur, waiting for you on the stairs like a goddamn child, wondering what kind of things you write about without me, if you still believe in the same things or if maybe they out grew you and the sad days you spend trying to out grow them. How me and Billy were holding those sticks out in front of us when we were exploring the abandoned homes on parker chapel road and it was the first time in months that I felt so good. Effortlessly happy. The smell of that newspaper from 1928 and when we snuck into that thin dark hallway to read all the restricted material in the library. And then I’m smoking a cigarette on someone else’s steps, I’m sitting in Warren’s passenger seat with my feet on the dashboard and a good song on the radio. Now you’re holding my hand and telling me how small I am. Like I don’t already know. Like I don’t feel it all the time. Like it’s not pressing up against me, mocking me, pointing out stars bigger than I am. But that’s okay. I take what I can get. And my ribcage rattles when the feelings grow louder. You can hear it like old cities breathing curse words and dog woods. If you listen carefully you can hear the ghosts of everything I’ve ever been. Are you listening?
--Ashli Wood