Love, Leaves

4/12/25

Geography is strange. I am here but I was there and you are never as far as I thought you were. I’m not allowed to love you anymore. Lots of things are strange. The itch in my palm. The ire in my stomach. Where do you feel your emotions— on the map, in a traffic light? In your throat, on your scalp? Bugs and hemispheres, electricity and flem— it doesn’t matter what it is if you don’t know where it’s from, if the last time you drew that house from memory it didn’t come close to the real thing. I’m not allowed to love you anymore, because the lights went out and the carpet had too many stains to make back the deposit. It’s a twelve hour drive, for God’s sake. I’m not allowed to love you anymore, so I’m giving my love to state lines, where the directions are tricky but I can’t blame anyone but me if the tire goes flat and I sleep under the stars with nothing but an itch in my palm to remind me that love, when it’s leaving, looks farther than it actually is.

— ODH