[PREMONITIONS]

That old city feels almost like a home, in some dreams
But the way it calls out my name,
Beckoning over hundreds of miles of farm and swamp and highway,
Almost makes me want to sail so far away South that I fall into the horizon,
Past my mother’s land and into the sun
Apollo, or Icarus
It leaves me trembling, California-worthy quaking in my boots
If I am not going back to kill it,
I think it will kill me first
(Apollo, or Icarus)

Lately, I’ve been having worse nightmares than I did back when I was crazy,
(Although I’m not sure I ever stopped)
In one, I am working the drive-thru and I can’t stop making the wrong order while everybody watches and sighs for the twenty-second time,
Feet tip-tapping and raised wrists checking the hour again
(Always so untimely, too late or the last one to leave)
In another, he tells me he’s been in love with an older woman this whole time and I pretend not to be upset about it
(How I hate my fleeting youth even as I try and grasp onto it)
On the third night, all the lights are off and every unsure step I take forward is met with a hand reaching out and latching onto my breaking ankles
(They’re where I carry all the adolescent shame I couldn’t shake off)

That old city holds a different version of me in it
I do not know her anymore,
(Did I ever?)
19 and ready to take on the world, so sure she was doing the right thing by running away
Sometimes I wake up with a cramp in my leg like I’m still trying to escape something I can’t name
And with every birthday that passes,
I’m left wondering if all I’ll ever do is rot,
Never moving on because I can’t
(Or won’t)

Every time I remember how old I am,
The 15 year old girl sitting in my chest is surprised to hear that we made it past 18
Her long hair Rapunzel’s into my stomach,
Tickles the butterflies until I’m throwing up too many vodka sodas in the third stall
(I’m still making the same mistakes I’ve always made)
I still think the universe soothes the untrackable passage of time by playing silly little tricks on me
Like when I retaught myself how to shrink after years of forced unlearning,
Or the time I finally got my sister to hate me,
(I think I miss the screaming and the glass breaking more than anything else,
The same way I miss the numbness spreading through Northern Florida more than I miss the forest)

The back of my throat still itches from all the wine in that apartment,
When I go back, my nose will still burn from all the snow in that man’s truck
(My life is moving forward and in reverse at the same time)
Comatose in the middle of a swimming pool,
Sink down to the center and don’t move for centuries,
Let everyone around me die while I hold my breath just so I don’t have to feel it
(I’ll open my eyes as soon as I am out of time to mourn)
But lately I’ve been waking up drowning again,
I take every breath on purpose like my lungs forgot how to hold air
I am so terrified of suffocating in my sleep that I can’t lay in my bed anymore without my chest caving in
So I pass out, drunk, on the couch in my shorts and lace bra
(Because even now I can’t convince myself that I don’t have to be wanted to be worth anything)

Maybe I am relearning how to be a person
(Maybe I never knew how to begin with)
I tried to look at the stars and I tried to find peace in forgiveness,
I tried looking past every shortcoming and disappointment,
But I’m still not who I’m supposed to be
I’m still a car spun out, bald tires on a wet road
Can’t get a grip on anything, blink and you’re wrapped around a telephone pole again
I still feel the weight of every horrible thing I did when I was a child and even last week
(I’m not growing up, but compounding my insanity)
I’m still as angry as I was at 16
I still fall victim to female hysteria every time my father opens his mouth
(I will keep blaming everything on him until there is nothing left to point fingers about)

That old city and its tired playlist still have a chokehold on me three years later,
My brain melts in the sweltering summer,
Oozes out of my ears and drip drops down to the beat of all my favorite songs
(I guess I’ve never been one to move on easily)
Stuck in the same memories, even as dust-covered as they grow
They won’t retire,
Work all day for the rest of my life until I forget everything except for the sharpest daydreams:
Wasted and hopping between rooftops downtown until sunrise; holding hands on the walk up to his apartment; the sweat of a hundred strangers mixing with mine
Spring flew so fast, before
The flowers grew too quickly and then died
(Sometimes I think I did, too)
I drive down different roads in the same restless town,
The old ones are a fever dream
The wind feels familiar, but it witnessed a different girl’s unraveling
(It used to be colder here)
Layered up in long sleeves and coats, sanctuaried against the frost-biting air
(January’s nails never stopped digging into my skin)

This Winter I will hold my ground or be buried in it
If I am not back to kill this place, it will kill me first
(I am already wielding the knife in my hands,
I am already being lead to the slaughterhouse)