lifting the weight
pressed across my chest
is the only way to forget–
your walls were too high here for me
but the screens, too thin for you.
so in a fury of vintage clothing
and guarded spaces,
you trundled back
across the country
leaving a feeling,
never-really-tried.

i might have fallen in love
with california,
with a manner cool and fleeting
as fog rolling down the hills,
carried by the bay breeze.

or? perhaps it was
the saltpungent taste of
another margarita,
the warmth of the tan skin
or the allure
of the fearlessly obnoxious.

i might have been led on
by california,
by an attitude aloof and welcoming
as waves crashing on the crags
of alcatraz.

it was the distance that drove us
          apart
from my south being just too
          deep
into the grinding of reality’s wheel
we were tossed, you were lost,
and now i dance on.

i could have gotten lost
in california,
but i saw the cities on the map
tracing me a path of solitude–
and instead of your drive,
i walked.