but my heart is not the sidewalk

the summer before I broke my heart in the way that you can only do when you are still entirely whole--unaware that there will be trees that need to come up through your pavement—I spent it driving back and forth across town in the middle of the night.

it wasn't dark yet.
is that a metaphor, or just geography?
the pavement at home heaves from the frost.
but this is also not a metaphor: the winter always kept me whole.

once, on the way home, we stopped for breadsticks. there was a friend with a new tattoo who needed a ride to the airport;
but that's mostly unremarkable--there is always a friend with a new tattoo who needs a ride to the airport.
or, a correction: there always used to be a friend with a new tattoo who needed a ride to the airport.
maybe that's why it was remarkable.
because here you can take the train to the airport.

listen:
there is a reason the sidewalk sacrifices itself for the trees.
the trees here are old and tall.
the leaves are always green.

in May, the jacaranda stains the sidewalk purple.
in October, the olives need to be shaken off their branches.

but my heart is not as solid as the sidewalk,
and it still hurts some days.

materials may be renewed for two weeks at a time

Everything here smells like a library book:
the cutlery drawer in the kitchen,
the blankets on the couch, and even
the potted succulents next to the window.

It smells like a library book, and
reminds me that it's not mine forever--
that holding on too long
costs twenty-five cents a day.

excerpt from East Coker by T.S. Eliot

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

-T.S. Eliot, "East Coker," from *The Four Quartets* 

r e s i l i e n c e

"Struggle isn’t tragedy. It is necessary to say this because too often the former is conflated with the latter. And too often we create false narratives around struggle; we say that people have “overcome” their circumstances or “overcome” their struggles, when in reality people often manage to survive their circumstances by way of the very mettle or knowledge gained through the circumstances themselves."

-Ayana Mathis, On Impractical Urges