a walk in the neighborhood

an epistolary poem (sent by email, now unearthed)

there is an empty plastic cannister
abandoned at the end of the driveway
with a red $5 sticker 
and a single fruit half-rotting
like a candied plum. also:

wood chips to kill weeds
wood fence to keep out
telephone pole leaning
scent of reeking shit 
ABC electric and a rental truck, parked
cars stopping, turning
                                   to each their right of way
pink roses and the recycling truck 
                                                      ambling
garages open
morning commutes.

my morning commute is this
walk around the concrete 
bend.


who decided this place
would be made? 
I mean
           this neighborhood 
and these streets?


I'm clocked in, clocked out
to rebel against The Man.
The Man is a woman
on a four-day weekend
out of office. 
No Man cares 
if I respond to
an email promptly
or if I sit an hour later
than planned. 

the sunflowers are a foot tall 
and the blackberries
are ripening for pie. 

at the window, Gina watches 
me unlock the door 
and the handle sticks.
my coffee is lukewarm
and the light is soft 
through the blinds.

the air circulates through
the oscillating purifier.

I crack the window: it's
supposed to be a high
of 88 today but it's
an overcast 62.
Portland settling,
homeostasis. I’m
unsettled. it's 
the nausea, it's
the first week of
taking norgestimate and
ethinyl estradol, it's
the cat throwing up,
finding clotted blood
on the hardwood, it's 
Chris not wanting to set
the calendar plans, it's
being eleven and thirteen and
sixteen and my Dad
postponing our lives
another year. 

my body like other bodies
keeps regulating, though
my stimulants throttle
my chest. Maybe I have
a heart problem, it's
a late night whisper
of a troubled mind
off her sleeping pill.

I forget what's dreamt,
waking to think:

"Has anyone ever used
a cross as a sword?"

I mean that literally, I'm
not writing a crude Crusades
metaphor! Like,
a cross even looks like a sword!
     Like, a bloodied Final Girl,
fleeing from the serial killer
     or the crazed murderer
or the creature
    or The Bear Man
through the pews
    of a decrepit church
out in the woods,
    sees the cross
(barely hanging on behind the pulpit)
    wrenches it from
decaying wood, rusty nails shot out
    embedding into her open wounds,
smashes the tip against
    the ground to break the end
off into a sharp point,
    weapon acquired, inventory
updated. Like, it's
    a zombie apocalypse
her foe is the abusive pastor
    that terrorized her town
of which she is now the
    sole survivor. The Man is crawling
towards her, foaming
    at His mouth, so it's 
really satisfying 
    when she thrusts
the cross into His back
    and watches the life fade
from His glazed eyes.


Ah! an hour lost!
the sun through the blinds—
back to the grind, there
and back again.

---

enjoy this rambling, stream of conscious, morning walk revelry. written over summer, sent to my best friend via email, revised, now posted in its Final Form (or is it…?).

hope you get to have a nice walk in your neighborhood soon.

Thanks for reading—

<3 Megan