Hi.

karenfelloutofbedagain:

Lots of things might happen. That’s the thing about writers. They’re unpredictable. They might bring you eggs in bed for breakfast, or they might all but ignore you for days. They might bring you eggs in bed at three in the morning. Or they might wake you up for sex at three in the morning. Or make love at four in the afternoon. They might not sleep at all. Or they might sleep right through the alarm and forget to get you up for work. Or call you home from work to kill a spider. Or refuse to speak to you after finding out you’ve never seen To Kill A Mockingbird. Or spend the last of the rent money on five kinds of soap. Or sell your textbooks for cash halfway through the semester. Or leave you love notes in your pockets. Or wash you pants with Post-It notes in the pockets so your laundry comes out covered in bits of wet paper. They might cry if the Post-It notes are unread all over your pants. It’s an unpredictable life.

But what happens if a writer falls in love with you?

This is a little more predictable. You will find your hemp necklace with the glass mushroom pendant around the neck of someone at a bus stop in a short story. Your favorite shoes will mysteriously disappear, and show up in a poem. The watch you always wear, the watch you own but never wear, the fact that you’ve never worn a watch: they suddenly belong to characters you’ve never known. And yet they’re you. They’re not you; they’re someone else entirely, but they toss their hair like you. They use the same colloquialisms as you. They scratch their nose when they lie like you. Sometimes they will be narrators; sometimes protagonists, sometimes villains. Sometimes they will be nobodies, an unimportant, static prop. This might amuse you at first. Or confuse you. You might be bewildered when books turn into mirrors. You might try to see yourself how your beloved writer sees you when you read a poem about someone who has your middle name or prose about someone who has never seen To Kill A Mockingbird. These poems and novels and short stories, they will scatter into the wind. You will wonder if you’re wandering through the pages of some story you’ve never even read. There’s no way to know. And no way to erase it. Even if you leave, a part of you will always be left behind. 

If a writer falls in love with you, you can never die. 

Lots of things might happen. That’s the thing about writers. They’re unpredictable. They might bring you eggs in bed for breakfast, or they might all but ignore you for days. They might bring you eggs in bed at three in the morning. Or they might wake you up for sex at three in the morning. Or make love at four in the afternoon. They might not sleep at all. Or they might sleep right through the alarm and forget to get you up for work. Or call you home from work to kill a spider. Or refuse to speak to you after finding out you’ve never seen To Kill A Mockingbird. Or spend the last of the rent money on five kinds of soap. Or sell your textbooks for cash halfway through the semester. Or leave you love notes in your pockets. Or wash you pants with Post-It notes in the pockets so your laundry comes out covered in bits of wet paper. They might cry if the Post-It notes are unread all over your pants. It’s an unpredictable life.

But what happens if a writer falls in love with you?

This is a little more predictable. You will find your hemp necklace with the glass mushroom pendant around the neck of someone at a bus stop in a short story. Your favorite shoes will mysteriously disappear, and show up in a poem. The watch you always wear, the watch you own but never wear, the fact that you’ve never worn a watch: they suddenly belong to characters you’ve never known. And yet they’re you. They’re not you; they’re someone else entirely, but they toss their hair like you. They use the same colloquialisms as you. They scratch their nose when they lie like you. Sometimes they will be narrators; sometimes protagonists, sometimes villains. Sometimes they will be nobodies, an unimportant, static prop. This might amuse you at first. Or confuse you. You might be bewildered when books turn into mirrors. You might try to see yourself how your beloved writer sees you when you read a poem about someone who has your middle name or prose about someone who has never seen To Kill A Mockingbird. These poems and novels and short stories, they will scatter into the wind. You will wonder if you’re wandering through the pages of some story you’ve never even read. There’s no way to know. And no way to erase it. Even if you leave, a part of you will always be left behind. 

If a writer falls in love with you, you can never die. 

At eighty

miles an hour

with headlights that

illuminate a universe which

spans only fifteen feet in front of you,

every entrance ramp is a near-death experience.

At some point, you forget it’s only near.

It was probably when you took

the wrong exit ramp in Tulsa,

wound up at a stoplight

next to Cheap Jail Bonds

[OPEN!] and your headlights

caught a dear hunched old woman

wrapped in scarves and cowl, leaning

against a light-pole like it’s an oar.

There’s that uneasy moment

when you can’t move

because you’re

a deer caught

at a red light and

you peer in earnest—

it’s only a mannequin—

but Charon’s grey eyes catch yours

and she smiles— so slowly— you’ve been

caught before the green light releases you. In

Oklahoma, street signs say Detroit and Minneapolis

and you know you can’t be in the right place.

The Industrial Revolution pours invisible

smoke into the black night

in the parts of town

you’d never be,

if not for the fact you’re

suspended overhead on the freeway.

Canadian Indianola can’t possibly be 23 mi.

ahead because it doesn’t exist and you’re not in Canada.

By what magic do road signs only light up for an instant

when illuminated by the speeding headlight?

You’re in Oklahoma. Probably. You’re lost.

WARNING NO SOUTHBOUND

RE-ENTRY and you wonder

for a moment if that

isn’t right because

after all you don’t know

where you are. When only

fifteen feet of headlight-lit highway

exist, every moment is identical and

purgatory can last forever. Omaha is in

Nebraska and you know you aren’t in Detroit.

Daisy Stringtown can’t possibly, possibly be

the name of a real place. Someone is just

making these up. Bunkie. Antler.

Valliant. You’re not getting

any closer. Somewhere

between Sawyer,

Okla., and

Paris, Texas:

BRIDGES FREEZE

BEFORE ROADS turns

into BRIDGE MAY ICE IN

COLD WEATHER. And maybe

it’s just because this is your sixth hour

of relentless driving or because you haven’t

slept in thirty-two hours or because you didn’t

have any spare change for the grinning Charon,

but you’re absolutely certain you must be dead,

because Canadian Indianola simply cannot

be a real place. You will drive forever,

never leaving your fifteen-foot

span of light no matter how

fast you speed, and

any crest of an

inclined road

could be the

end of the

world—