lavender sky, vignette
I have walked these white dusty sand shores a thousand times while the sun sets low opposite a blue ocean and paints the sky in golden hues and on cloudy days an enchanting lavender. I walk with a restless heart and dizzy head toward the same grand hotel past which I’ve never made it, I walk like I’ll never stop walking like I’ll cross the road at the furthest point north and hitch a ride far across the country to the west coast into that golden light and sleep under a starry sky like a drunken Kerouac character in the 60’s high on a rye bourbon lying on my back in the bed of an old truck with a Dolly Parton tune in my mind, cold from the empty canyon air and wake to a dry heat and cactus flowers shutting themselves up for the day in a morning haze - I’ll look back east as the morning sun coats me in rays and walk with my back towards it until the memories of my broken childhood disappear and I can no longer hear her stern voice in my ear whispering words of disappointment and depression where maternal love should be I’ll empty my pockets of my ancestors grief and run until my tropical cotton clothes fall off and tear my aching feet up mountain until the land is coated in ice and snow and be re birthed among the mountain goats and Rockies under big sky I’ll fish for trout and wear wool or heavy fabrics and adopt a dog who I’ll never name because he’ll never really feel like mine as I’ll never be his the weight of everything will melt away as my weightless heart grows backwards but this time I’ll free fall into my past with joy and promise to rewrite it all because Florida is hateful, the heat, the banana palms the inconsistency of hummingbirds at your garden the jasmine that teases you with a one month bloom and the thick wet heat that drenched you in all the times your heart has broken in the summer.
I’m heading west, I am this time I’ll keep walking I say I will
But just before I reach the hotel I notice the sun has dipped and the homeless are crawling out to the sands for comfort, it’s a full moon tomorrow, I turn around before I reach it, the walk home is like pushing against the wind and yet feels like surrender.
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