january - 2025 entry #3

(i said) it will keep getting closer and closer to home until it hits

have you ever felt it? the moment when it builds - the moment when it bursts? and you're standing on the plaza corner

in old san juan (you are sweating, the girls are at the benches up ahead deciding on lunch) and you tell yourself

yes, this is big enough to cry (on the corner of the plaza in old san juan, our flight is in four hours)

(you are only thinking about their lunch)

they will have to sit and eat. they will have to stare and the walls that watched the bullets.

they will have to eat to stay alive. they will have to hope to stay alive while they eat. and you are in silence

in snot and salt and silence (the city burns)

it is hitting, it is hitting. you assume that the trauma is the worst they might have, you imagine only the imaginable

it is home (and you pass security with the Tennessee license) you are hitting yourself, you are hitting yourself

wishing it had hit you first, instead of hitting them