i tried staying up for the leonids, but i forgot what i was staying up
for, & i fell asleep around 2:00.
the summer i was fourteen this boy came from D.C. to stay with his grandparents, down the street from my house. he was seventeen but i was taller, & at the time i believed all the stories he told me about his Wild Life In The City. he was the first person i wanted to kiss, really wanted so much that it was this constant flying-up creature hovering in between us when i would go over to sit on the porch with him at night & oh. he wanted me to sneak out to watch the perseids with him & i realized i was so afraid of finally kissing him that i did not go after all.
of course he went back to D.C. & the next time i saw him was two years later, when he visited again & came around to look me up, when i had just come home from falling-in-love-with-ananikko. & we sat out in someone else's backyard at night & looked up at the stars & talked about not-seeing-the-perseids together. i saw how short he was & how untrue all his Wild Wild Life stories must have been. we pulled up blades of the grass that we sat on & i felt safe in the night, even if i didn't trust him.
then last year i had a therapist who said i am most comfortable at night because there is less to overwhelm me.
(yes, if i am more comfortable at night why do i find it so impossible to stay up late.)
this place is just enough of a city to make me feel unsafe outside after dark, & not enough of one to guarantee that there will be other people outdoors no matter what time it is.
think of me at seventeen myself, lying down in the highway with ananikko, under those same stars with the road at my arched-up back, wanting to kiss her & telling myself that if i saw even one star fall i would do it.
