My Northern Side

The Ice House on Old Northern, the run-down Greyhound station. Sending out connections all over the Pacific. I sat in the shade of the trees and thought about our conversation. I thought about hearts and how fragile mine's become. The durability tested daily, worse for wear, like the work boots I lace behind my ankles. When that old lace snaps, my life prior washes away like rain across the windshield.

The world just opened up. I ran the Columbia, stretching farther to the west. Two hundred and forty-two miles to the city center. Six weeks inside a whirlwind. I forgot about your past life. I heard what I wanted and lost my footing in a natural separation, yet I could feel our hearts converging. I'm like a spotlight; it's hot underneath this glow. Do I sound the way I want to? Are you listening? Am I speaking when I should be sitting in the silence? I've been measuring my alterations, placing the cuff, and folding the sleeve. I'm gathering all my thread, mending my looser strings, and tying off my broken fringe.

I was passing Kadlec with a bite on my breath. I peered through glass doubled-paned, fighting against the sun's glare in high noon. I think I woke myself up last night. We sat in the bed under a naked comforter you said would ruin in the dirt. Whispering at volumes only we could hear, watching screams of violent red pour from westward skies. Your teeth chatter as the sun loses again. I think I could watch every battle. I think I could sit with you in the twilight under a sky of bluish optimism, hoping that the sun has a fighting chance, like maybe the darkness won't win again, or at least it won’t tonight. I’m caught in the middle like the tattoo that paints my abdomen.

Waiting for the Columbia, rising out of the high desert, re-negotiating all those things I thought I needed. Maybe some of us aren't supposed to solve our mystery.

Maybe the mystery is the point, and timing is everything else.

I told you about the green rushing in towards the gold. The valley below me crumbles as I watch sagebrush blow softly in the wind. There's a place where the desert meets the forest, which reminds me of us. All of my arid land needs the cooling push of your temperate breeze. Signs read for Coffin, my head still in the dust settling along Scenic Loop. Tell me about your friends, skilled broadcasters, and a deficiency of doubt. An editor I need and advice that might choke me. That night, up against the hills, chasing the minutes long past us, you said you'd never seen them roll like that, and I said they always do.

You said you like your wallpaper and would like to keep as much as possible. You said when you're hot, you want cold; when you're cold, you want hot. I heard you say it's not my responsibility to decipher between the two. I said I'd give you what you need, even if it's not more of myself. I'm not made of time, but I know it'll rip me apart if I fight it. Like the high wash of Mill Creek in early spring heat, you're a deluge. You're a current I can't pull from. You brush against my face like the tickle of a cattail. Do I have the heart to temper? 

Port Of Morrow on my northern side. The Columbia pulls away, winding around a bend of bedrock. My path takes me west. My path takes me elsewhere, where I know I'll meet her again. I'll meet her again just as she feeds into the Pacific. How many molecules? How many paths take us to the same place? I see her again on my northern side, I see her again, on the banks of blue water as noisy as the roll of hills collapsing.

Cover Art: Lakes & Rivers - Sandy Kowallis