All These Rooms

my love for you is like the best jeans

if I seem quiet sometimes it’s because my eyes follow
the storm as it moves across the sky and when spring
comes I am always talking to you in my head. the you
that I talk to is someone who can feel time passing
when they touch my skin, then gently peel it back,
lift the rim of my mouth, and slow it down. because
spring makes me remember the jeans that I wore when I
first moved to Portland, how much pot I smoked as I
watched the blinking red light on the hill opposite my
window, how nick slept in a hammock all year and the
potatoes that sat in soda cans on his desk, the green
sprouts pushing through the rough layer of skin and
mud like neon tongues. how we drank pabst and talked
about olesha and bukowski and he never once asked me
if I was okay, if things were better between me and
the boy I had betrayed. he cooked dinner instead.
spring makes me remember the church of elvis, where it
all began, and then the wind in my stomach moves
faster and I feel like all my words will spill out. I
don’t care to know where we go when we die. I just
want to know what happens to all these rooms, all
these voices. where did the nights that I drank wine
with artemis go now that I am here with you walking
down sunset? what I mean is does one reality replace
another or are my eyes ghosts? and what happens to
these questions if I shut up and look at you as we
stand here on the corner waiting for the light to
turn, your hands shoved deep into your pockets because
you say you come from a warmer place. what happens if
I am not scared that you see me doing this?

-natalie