I think the crisis you foretold—the one you said would make me have to change—I think it occurred. You said I might see death down a hall. You told me my choice would be clear, and that questions I had would stand small. You said I couldn’t know love until I was made to see. What you said was true—all of it—and at the moment of truth, my will went dry, my mind went black, and one was still there. Not exactly what I expected.
You were right when you pleaded with me to find my direction and make the most of it. You told me to eat, so I did. I ate and thought about meals of my past. Meals that made my world go round into a potter’s ground of bliss uneventfulness. I ate the dust of your worth. I’ve been to the edge of panic. The last word of reason. I’ve been to the place of fear and fearnot. You said it would scare me straight. It did.
Don’t care about the year-end statement. Day to day. Do the best you can due. You thought I might get grabbed around the throat or squeezed on the chest. You were both right. Fear and fame led me straight away—balanced at the tip. Fuck you.
Not an ounce of concern before crisis. How true. I thought listening to the couples murmur across the pond could set me low. The peaceful pillow talk of lovers in the dark just to sleep a few more minutes. Turn. And you turn over to. My turn to spoon you.
I saved nothing. And I was saved. Wasn’t shown how to live.
When did I go to shit? How does the progress look? Tell the truth, as you always have. Always given me my medicine. How did you know? You gave me the best and rest of you. And there’ll never be enough of me. Never enough to pay the payend.
“His Dad was kind of famous,” he mumbled. “He had money to—he was a trust fund kid. His Dad wrote books. He was a famous— ”
“He was a famous author,” she said, “Stephen Ambrose.”
“The Lewis and Clark historian?”
“Yeah.”
“Let me tell you something about frybread. Frybread has caused all those old Indians on the reservations to get diabetes.”
“My mom raised me on frybread.”
“I love frybread.”
“He don’t mean disrespect.”
You knew. Knew it all along. And it was the finest thought I’d ever known. You alone.
But the blasts never last. This may be how it is from now on. Ya’ll’ll have to go digging. Sentences aren’t looking one to the next, as they used to. You showed me more of me, standing hunched and low.
