This is all a blur. This is too big to carry on back with or without scoliosis or strength. This is too windy so that everything rushes out of pockets and everyone knows you can no longer get through a day without: chapstick, that rock they gave you, two tissues, tiny folded bits of poems, a pin that when you press it music blurts out, some nuts for protein, a pen with someone else’s name on it, the photo of them without you, some rain stolen from when it fell off some cloud somewhere captured in a pill box. These pockets are deep.
When they go missing, search milk cartons. Search lamp posts and grocery store cork boards. Search alleyways and abandoned warehouses. Search the forest behind their house. Search rooftops and fire escapes. Search other bodies and linger until some other sort of sensation arrives. When they go missing, buy a plane ticket, go to hospital, cry in front of an audience of strangers, walk around nude beneath midnight, have an affair with another part of your body, slam memory against brick wall and see what colors converge. This has nothing to do with you. Sometimes people need to exit in order to feel like they exiSt.
Aimee Herman 