of What You Could Do

You return home to curated air conditioned air and spill sand all over your clean room. Nothing looks the same, and you think perhaps your eyes have changed. I took a long shower to wash civilization back onto my skin but stepped out unsatisfied, dull. She writes from under a palm tree and you try to feel the waves in your muscles again but they have left you.

If the itch teased you through spring it has turned to a fullblown fever now, sweating your brow and haunting you at night. You think of California in the fall, of Bali in January and simple writers cabins in the mountains, you look around your room and see only things you can live without. You stayed so long in this sanctuary, slept so well and spoiled yourself rotten with security. But whose life have you been living?

A typewriter stands in my window, its portable case locked around it and the handle pulled out towards me. The word never needed a lease, it thrives on new horizons and magic, and I know that’s what it whispers to me in the night.

At some point you’ve started the getaway car.
That’s when it’s too late to get out.