Foreign Soil

The land stretches along the horizon; flattened into grassy plateaus.

I’m used to peaks, jutting into the sky; massive, hungry things like teeth that gobble at clouds, at blue. This place is foreign, but only to me.

It is old, centuries old, and it’s difficult to understand the depth of a thousand years when thirty seems so long.

This land is stable in ways I’ll never be, and I’m afraid to take off my shoes, to curl my toes in the grass and accept that.

I wonder about tectonic plates that shift, and shred, and mash. I think of them the way I think that the two parts of me come together – so unlike waves meeting and crashing, dissolving into a synonymous body.

Wouldn’t that be beautiful?

Though maybe another curse in and of itself that I wouldn’t understand until I’d experienced it.

The grass is always greener on the other side.

Back home, the grass is green and soft, but not because it’s hearty - it’s because it’s young and not tested. It’s virgin, which doesn’t mean it’s bad - just inexperienced, unable to withstand the tread of feet, and responsibility and time. Here the grass is broad and rooted, fighting back against the way the soles try to beat it down, try to tame it.

And I want so badly to lay amongst those razor strands, to feel it biting in my skin; to will the ancient molecules to bond with mine, to make me better than I am. Because I, much like that infant grass, am puzzled with tectonic plates that shift, and grate, battling for space. For agency. For prominence.

The grass is always greener on the other side, yet I am left wondering why there are even sides to begin with.

Will I have to wait a hundred years, a thousand, or more to become a solid being like the continent upon which I currently stand? And if that is the case, then I will surely be reduced to bones, then bile, then dust; and maybe there, within the grave is where I will finally stabilize,

where I will finally become me.

Hotel, 2B

The city lights pulse, dying the sheer curtains in shades of neon orange and blue. It compliments the carpet, which zigzags in patterns of navy and terracotta. The low pile accepts the abuse of feet that shuffle or stumble in, as it has no other choice. Much in the way that the walls cannot be anything other than the soft-leaf wallpaper, gently curling at the high, humid corners. The door to the mini-bar is canted, one hinge busted by some unknown trauma. Chill slinks out from around the imperfect seal, causing cool damp spots to linger, causing even skeptical people to see ghosts that aren’t there.

I would know, because I don’t believe in that shit; yet here I sit, looking over my shoulder, wondering if the shape I see beyond the curtain is merely my reflection or a prowler who has scaled their way to my second floor balcony. I pace, thumbnail wedged between teeth, and try not to relapse into bad habits that I’ve never truly shaken. Proof, enough, by the mini vodka that taunts me from the bar on top of the fridge. Even more evident by the one that’s been cracked opened and drained, now lying in the trash. It hasn’t helped to calm my nerves. It’s only exacerbated them, as guilt worms itself within my gut, convincing me even more that what I think I see isn’t a figment of my overactive imagination, but a manifestation of karma.

Fuck the wagon which I’ve fallen off.

And fuck the figure which stands just beyond the gossamer and glass.

I pretend I do not see the way that head and shoulders weave, mimicking my movement as I peer around strip of black-out curtains that they’re hiding behind. How easy would it be if I snapped them closed? Could I allow myself to put out of sight what I would struggle to put out of mind? This isn’t a solution.

The way that bottle of liquor wasn’t.

Isn’t.

I won’t make the same mistake again.

As I rip my thumb from my mouth a bit of cuticle stays between my teeth, but I do not register the pain when I stride up to the sliding glass door and grasp the cold, wooden handle. It’s splinterery, and yet I do not flinch when my hand grips it and I jerk back the heft of the door, which gives easily. So easily that I nearly fall forward, and use that momentum to invigorate my charge. I lean into it, shoulders first, a snarl on my lips as I shout, “Hey!”

My scream echoes out onto the street below, swallowed by the sounds of taxis burning fuel in the traffic below.

My fingers clutch the balcony and the banister bites into my stomach as I lean forward and look left, then right, then left again. I am alone.

I exhale, the relief a cold press against my burnt out heart and I smile at how silly I’ve been. A smile that drops as soon as I hear the unmistakable snick of the balcony door sliding shut.

I gasp and whip around, eyes blow wide enough that I see them doubled back. I shiver, and weave, trying to see around and into the room that is empty beyond my reflection, which peers back at me from around the curtain.

photo credits: Des DeVivo