Graffiti and Concrete

The Summer of 2021 found me tanned and studious, legs propping up my laptop by the pool, screen open to a remote class on the history and artistry of graffiti while I let the Grecian sun polarize through my sunglasses. It should have been irritating, being made to study during an astonishing vacation, the first I’d dared to embark on since the pressure cooker of COVID began. 

It should have been, but it wasn’t. Instead, I found the course vastly interesting, one of those lessons that adds an asterisk to your eye, noting a new layer of appreciation over the kind of art your vision previously skipped over.

The bold beauty of graffiti feminist pioneer Lady Pink paired with the Agean island like the fine cheese and wine I dined on. Ever since I’ve held them together. 

Now, 2023 Winter has me in Rennes, France, a student-filled city that does not dare skimp on the intersection of forsaken architecture and graffiti artwork. The air in Rennes hangs in abundance as time lags between human presence on each alley street. There is just a feeling of vacancy, like you are the only one watching, a sense that you are the sole observer of this cold beauty. 

This is what I feel here, and I hope I do the feeling justice.

Rusted Wall Box.

The rusted wall box has no other name but this,

no friends but the crust of itself

and a gray paint that chips into deeper colors.

What do we guard but the empty room of ourselves?

Grown over by vines and teenagers,

a can-string phone line echos in two vacant halls. 

Clank me into the vibrations you understand

and maybe you won’t lose me

in the gray-chipped paint that becomes

my gravestone. 

Graffiti Row.

No matter who levies the last lash of color, 

the acrylic blood will pool.

Dripping just off the edges 

of the most prolific overwrought signatures,

but who can make a mark without bleeding?

We are remembered for our bloodstains,

not our discarded scabs, not for the wounds we heal over.

Though we never know the difference. 

I could imagine myself overwhelmed by the organic splat of rouge

while the rest of the world’s eyes only sees a spring-wound dancer.

That tiny ballerina cradled in the two jointed pieces

of a painted jewelry box, holding the red crystal of solved wounds.

Still, these jewels must stalk somewhere,

so they do.

Framing plywood backboards with colors 

that bleed into themselves and stay.

A pierced heart sacrificed for nothing.

Grow Up.

I can play all day I am great

& I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t fine. 

I am fine. Of course, I am fine.

It’s just this juxtaposition as sinew between my bones

this wanting of nothing more

then for him to hold me in the dark,

to paint over my beige body in his dark colors,

only in the dark where we can hide our faces and feelings

and all the while, I can hold the trauma he gifted me

and I can still hate him.

It’s a decision, every day,

to stand up out of the darkness, 

to stop relying on quick fixes,

to grow green over spray-paint stains

to choose yourself over and over, 

even if you are the only one.

Words are beautiful, just like his paint was,

I need to borrow their beauty

& maybe together, we can build a more permanent love. 

Little Prince.

The little prince nuzzles my hair,

white-gold locks that mock the white of his world.

Some aristocrat made him, 

but we can’t make our makers, 

we can only remake their art.

Repackage their good message, only this time

it is meant for everyone. 

Little prince dreams in galaxies,

ones that parade around in billowed colors, soft and primary. 

Little prince doesn’t want to challenge you. 

Little prince will take your friends and paint them pastel,

any color pleasing to the eye half asleep.

He learned this from his little fox,

that all of us are made from the same array of colors. 

Some aristocrat made him,

but he can take his colors and build this world into the softest galaxy.

Little prince curls into my arms

and I can’t mock the way it feels so sweet

to hold someone’s planet and close your eyes,

to fade into someone else’s idea of perfect innocence. 

Mind-Altering

Taking and bending

No rules line this space between

The weight of everyone

Who have found nothing between their fingers

And cruelty rings my ears

Time dulled by the puff and exhale 

The big smoke from nothing but the hot air inside, escaping

And I just want to add to my savings.

Cold-Pressed Lullaby.

Startled into 1984 brotherhood,

these hard lines beg 

for concrete companions on the pavilion.

Rigid and cold without any contrast

like your spine bends backward

out of open eyelet window.

This attic habitat

and the frigid air that flows,

clinging to the hot puffs of breath

that sail over the street. 

Inhale this cold and let go

of what you think is warm.

You don’t need it in backbends

in the broke backs you shape into proverbial mountains.

You aren’t gay, just like 

you aren’t completely sold on men, either.

Convince yourself you are flawed in the face

so you can secretly believe you are the face

every fem girl wishes to see in the mirror without guilt.

You aren’t a narcissist because you love yourself,

but maybe you’re that self-pining flower for another reason.

You are filled with contrasting truths

only you can weave together. 

Count yourself lucky because you are. 

Call your sister. Tell her you love her because it’s true

and imagine she says she doesn’t judge

the mistakes she would never make.

No matter what she really says, you’ll never truly trip,

just break your back into a new window,

tricking a different pipe dream into truth.

Fade to Fuzz.

The men themselves cross their puffed arms at each curved corner.

The French are circles. 

It is said in every slopped rock. 

They love borders of portal blocks, 

straight edges manipulated into hooks. 

The green tea bird beaks its water into my cup,

spilling over its own lip to warm into shallow pool.

Do all these things count as something? 

Trapped in this charm-edged world,

the Ty Anna ticket will take my coins with the same clink

owned by any jar.

You learn quickly that any destination hangs foreign deceits

before you learn to weave your straight lines into its circles. 

To sip and swallow the steaming tea, 

their paint-charmed kettle chirps.

Sidestep puff-plump guards on the curve,

and side-eye, the same way Chicago taught you. 

Courting Cambridge

I am running. Face twisted with concern, yet with each step the muscles find slack. I thank the border control woman in every language I know.

I showed her my train ticket fifteen minutes ago, and without her kind decision, I would still be standing deep in the inching queue, sweating inside instead of out.

The officer who stamped my passport didn’t even meet my eye, pressing ink over my niceties, and I didn’t mind, not if he let me go.

I slide through the train’s chomping portal with mere seconds to spare and swear I can feel the metallic bite of air behind me.

I have been traveling since 3:30 am this morning, and my day’s journey is not yet over. Planes, trains, and automobiles, so the story goes, have carried me across the kiss of Anglo-French air. Now, my body can rest beyond another transfer as I sail over iron tracks on my way to the next station.

I have not slept, but the weekend was worth it.

Tracing Tracks

Can you still miss your train if you can see it leaving?
You can’t miss something you never truly had.
You can hold this idea of a train ride,
this ticket stub of intention,
but reality was all too real for a dream.
Your real steps couldn’t keep up,
not with the way your fingers flicked through each screen.
You don’t have to slide plastic
through its arrowed cousin anymore.
Memorize the numbers on your credit card,
so you can keep charging yourself
for things without touching them.
You can toss your money to the wind
without rouging with the sting of scattered coins.
You don’t have to feel something
to wish it was yours.
But typing a thing and doing it
are not the same.
I would know,
I miss your train every time.

My long weekend in Cambridge came unexpected; an Instagram message from an old friend turned into a real plane ticket, crossing our ironic European proximity.

It must have been four or five years since we had last seen each other, and never without the family context of PC childishness and parental supervision. But we aren’t children anymore.

Seeing her was melting a younger (older) version of myself into my skin, rediscovering a girl with stories and jokes long forgotten.

The two-hour drive from Heathrow to her home just out of Cambridge was filled with endless chatter and a spinning web of memory. We tied 2010s trips through the California-Nevada desert, filling in each other’s gaps and planning our next-day hello to the larger city.

Saturday drove us on the wrong side of the road to Cambridge’s center. We walked the outline of the Grand Arcade mall, took lattes for takeaway, and indulged in Nando’s peri-peri before meandering our way to the city’s botanical garden.

Fall had crisped green into orange-yellow and scattered this over evergreen grass in nature’s layers.

We abandoned the map’s predetermined path for our own, dipping into the damp greenhouse to see tropical plants wind around each other in humid reflections. Baked by the focus of sun-lit windows, we traced plants from each part of the world until the archway released us. Outside, the simple grounds of the garden’s deepest boundaries came in shallow hills swelling in slight curves as the dirt-carved path snaked through trees and around flower beds.

The mild day cooled us enough to pull jackets back around our bodies, and by 3 pm, we had finished our tour. While we departed, time set fire’s arch, keeping it until the next morning.

This time a friend of a friend was behind the wheel, and we parked at the Grand Arcade, over-indulging in tights and knit sweaters. Soon my caffeine headache dragged us to the TikTok (and city) famous Fitzbilles for their highly-praised Chelsea buns and the cold coffee ordered only by Americans.

We unboxed our buns on the way back and stickied our fingers with the maple syrup that replaced creamed icing on the classic cinnamon rolls we were used to.

Still good, but different. Not as sticky sweet, but coating us in sugar just the same.

Edits.

You can’t unlove a city
unlove the swarm that rounds out its voices
different from yours. You can’t
unknow the train lines, the rusted bus stops,
rain-soaked metal awnings.
Cities have veins
and we are white blood cells;
there are too many of us bleeding onto the street,
running out of ways to heal ourselves.
It’s not healthy to erase memory,
to erase this metro matrix other fingers
have lined on your body.
Abandoned buildings are still buildings,
even when they’ve lost life.
You can’t untangle the strands
she left on your pillow,
not without smelling me.
Just as I can’t smell my own sweater,
without the threads reminding me
I used to love you.
I can’t unlove the way it felt to love,
even if I don’t love you anymore.

Meg, Margot, and St. Michel

I think about Maleficent’s thorny throne, Phillip chopping through hardened stems, severing rose bud necks, and drawing shallow red rivulets over his cheek, but as we conquer these steep steps, it is clear that here, the vines are nuns and monks, rose buds are stone busts, and their thorns are Christian judgment. 

Le Mont St. Michel stands impressive and imposing. Man’s stone on nature’s rock, here, predates the middle ages. It is said that in 708, Saint Aubert, bishop of Avranches, built the first religious sanctuary on the former Mont Tombe. 

Ever the saint, he believed that this vision did not come from his mind but from a divine decree, and he was simply fulfilling the wishes of the archangel Michael. Saint Aubert claimed the angel had appeared to him thrice in his dreams, enlightening him to Mont Tombe’s future. This initial sanctuary remained atop the rock for over 200 years until a community of Benedicts built its first church in 966. 

It was in the 10th century that construction began on the still-standing abbey of Mont St. Michel, but this period of construction was not completed until the 19th century. Over its 1300 years of history, St. Michel endured the passage of religious pilgrims, a long stint as a prison, an impregnable fortress during France’s Hundred Years War with England, and a return to its initial purpose as an Abbey. 

Though Le Mont has held fast to its French authority throughout these conflicts, discourse remains as to which region Le Mont belongs to. Situated between the border of Normandy and Brittany, the island technically lies within Normandy’s domain, but that does not stop Brittany loyals from claiming the island. 

What they are having.

I’ll take a toke,

a drink or a puff,

a bump or a smoke. 

What is it this time?

What Gods live here?

Are we visiting or being visited

by the angels that lie between tabs of acid?

They must be real

if we can see them in mushroom meals

or drink them in the nature of peyote. 

Should we tell them? The others? The ones who believe us?

Or should we keep this divinity for ourselves?

Roll Jesus in a joint and tell them what we remember.

Crush Abraham with the flat of our fist,

he coats our nostrils with his heavenly fire. 

I won’t tell, as long as you give me a line. 

They can think angels live in the sky,

and we can sit in chapel circles, 

passing our God,

telling each other what we see,

denying the reality of darkness,

and calming overdoses of thought with stories.

Bundled in borrowed green and crocheted yellow, I wove my gaze between bus seats as Le Mont St. Michel came into view. Pointed, the Abbey invites the imagination to see stone join sky as the steeple pierces the clouds. 

Our first order of business, braving the chill that exits the bus, was lunch. We followed the upward trend of foot traffic, the path that passed gift shops and tourist traps between overpriced restaurants. 

After passing on a few 36 euro meals, we found a cute creperie with everything we needed. 

The small eatery, Le Chapeau Rouge, fell back from the street and the tight-knit tables allowed for only a narrow squeeze to our corner. 

Filling into our seats, it wasn’t long before we were ordering galettes complet to quell the rumble of our hunger. Ham, egg, and rye crepe came quickly, and we ate just as fast, ordering a second crepe for dessert. These crepes au citron shortly followed, and we rolled the bittersweet lemon over our tongues. 

Plier

the french word for fold is plier. 

like a ballerina

they make halves.

gentle fingers crease gentler messages,

papers plie for their envelopes

& flattened batter folds around a metal spatula

in fourths.

i try to bend with this elegance too,

but my hands don’t move with the same grace.

mine graze over sloping beauty

cursive intentions crease pages with an alibi.

my body curls in on itself,

in a c, not a plie,

& all these french faces know

i am not one of their own.

Braving the sea-breeze outside of the creperie, we renewed our hike to the Abbey carved into the mount of Mont St. Michel. Staccato steps faltered over cracks and traipsed through the stoney wonderland of souvenir shops and medieval tourist traps. 

Joan, the one of the Arc, stands as a statue halfway up the island in all her romantic and religious armor. 

The sole woman among thousands of men, immortalized in this same fashion. The only indication of her feminine figure was the two rounded plates bonded to her chest plate. 

Gift shops boast this same Joan in plastic figurines for children, but most flock to the crowded walls of synthetic swords and painted gold shields. Toddlers point with sticky fingers, and parents fall prey to the out-of-town prices. 

At last, through the sea of open doors, we reached the Abbey in all its gray and godly glory. 

I expected this catholic monument to come colorful and adorned in stained glass light and devoted strokes of paint. St. Michel did not deliver on this front, but as we followed the preconceived order of rooms, I was overwhelmed by the dull gray of its stone. It was rare for color to peak through rudimentary windows, and the bleak ceilings hung heavy without the lift of paint. 

The immense building, anywhere else, would be a complete disappointment. Its size and echoed halls are nothing without its perfect placement on the mont’s original rock. 

That is the point. 

Constructed under the supervision of monks and nuns of the Catholic faith, the abbey lets the island’s natural beauty speak for itself. Unadorned windows are blown open by the ocean’s breath, the payoff of seemingly endless steps and steep cliffs. 

Our legs continued to climb, pulling muscle tight with each step and loose behind our eyes as we adjusted to this brand of beauty. Sand, tan and damp, extends infinitely from the circumference of the mont. Waves kiss this intersection and draw their body back out to sea. 

Close your eyes and breathe salt, learn what beauty can exist behind shut lids, and smell the simplicity of what the monks call “god’s work.”

Living in Le Douillet

All noise disappears as we find our way out of Rennes and into the simple fields of the Normandy countryside. My new friend, Megan, her girlfriend Margot, and I rode as passengers in the back of a small gray sedan dubbed Cleo.

Our tightly packed car wound down these dirt roads and up the slightly swollen plateau at the town’s center. We parked between Gorron’s Le Marie and La Cuisine de Bubba, the Pizzaria owned by Megan’s family.

The slightly fogged windows called us to warmth, and we quickly slipped into the cozy restaurant. Despite pizza’s Italian roots, the Hearn family brings a slice of English culture to the small French town.

Voices ring through the open hall in English tones, serving the spirited regulars oven-baked pies with a fair share of beer and wine.

We collapsed into the first open booth, finding space for our bags behind the bar. As I ordered my “hot & spicy” pizza and watched Margot take orders, I felt familiarity cover my limbs like I was back on my old neighborhood hill in San Diego.

Passers-by called to Megan, and tables sent hugs to the whole family before ducking through the door into dusk. Tipping hats with neighborly affection.

Truman

So many weekends away
Always away
Where I know nothing and no one
But it’s only a matter of time.
You can burrow a home anywhere
Nuzzle your crown into broken twigs
Soon enough they’ll turn green again.
Another safety net sprouts
Familiar faces hold your gaze
And mouths will say words you finally understand.
But my mind hasn’t learned the difference
Between an embrace and a chokehold.
White knuckles cant soothe me, racing
Head spinning and turning
The same panorama burned like a silver CD
Behind my eyes.
Playing like a skipping tape
Over and over the same sky.
Each day, a groundhog peaks out of a hole
Surveys his surroundings
And I scream.

We washed down pizza with a glass of rose until its closing time; then I took my place as a foreign friend in their right-handed car.

It was dark by the time we pulled into their driveway, and the nightly stars did not do the converted cow shed the same justice as dawn’s rise the next morning. Opening the sky over green and growing land, this sun shone through the windowed wall into the kitchen.

Beams held two lofted levels while the kitchen looked up to the original peaked roof. Stainless steel appliances divided this lower floor between living space and tv room. The hearth wafted warmth through hung clothes and clung to the couch’s pillowed blankets.

After drinking my coffee and filling my stomach with Biscoff and toast, Margot, Meg, and I went on a meandering walk of their farmland neighborhood.

Cows stood lazily in fenced fields, and trees made shallow forests between plots of land. Wind lifted our hair in short exhales as we strolled, finding footing over fallen leaves and around muddy tire tracks.

Out to Pasture

Life passes in seasons,
Trees fall without sound
And the deaf breeze paints crinkled leaves across the sky.
A rubber-gloved hand pulls life from inside me
And my underbelly is sore
From new mouths.
Life passes between metal links,
A fenced existence I don’t care to dispute.
At times I drag myself, heavy,
Onto dirt road,
Just to feel something in the seconds before a car downshifts
And hands roughly push me in my tired direction.
Life is in a silver, open cage
And I watch the sky.
Another season comes and so does my cellmate.
Another cell swells inside me,
And this time, I pass life to them.

We crossed the blooming man-made pond and constructed rocky steps that pave the backyard. Running our muddy boots against the rough doormat, we returned to home base.

It was finally time to dress for the Halloween/birthday party hosted that evening. My wardrobe lent itself easily to Jules from Euphoria, so I excitedly smoothed blue tights over my legs and zipped a white and orange swirled skirt over my hips.

A gold chain belt of flowers clipped over these layers, and I doubled up on green with a long-sleeve pattern and simple tank. I linked necklaces over each other and clipped rainbow earrings to my lobes before finishing the material portion of my costume with a borrowed mini backpack.

The final touches were space buns and white ink outlining my eyes, just as Jules would have wanted.

Meg and Margot secured felt petal hats over fairy dresses, becoming two adorable flower fairies before me.

Meg’s sister claimed 18 as the party commenced, and we slurped homemade jello shots from shallow paper scallops in her honor. The disco lights lit our night from the inside, flooding the windows with light that spilled onto the patio.

As we warmed our legs by her father’s bonfire and listened to the youthful music from within, I let the fire hold me, grateful for the kindness of temporary strangers.

Camping at Detente et Clapotis

Violet petals lay delicate betwixt my fingers as I weave stems through each other. Birds sing their presence over the lake that laps like a tired tongue over pebbles, smooth with the softness that only comes from years of kissing the same water. Boats row gently over this blue pool and circle each other in arched loops, their waved tracks meeting and breaking into new peaks.

It is moments like these that I question my unwavering commitment to city superiority. This peace of nature seems to smooth my bones and carve new ridges in my brain- for what is true that cannot be observed in such Eden?

It is easy to sink into the tranquility of this afternoon.

Focusing on the task at hand, braiding my flower crown chain, I can’t help falling back into childhood memories of Nebraska field kingdoms and woven inaugurations with my sister. Her chubby three-year-old hands breaking stems and my heart with that childhood beauty always accentuated by time.

I’ve been thinking about us a lot lately, tiny Elizabeth and lanky me, as I take my post as a live-in nanny for two weeks in Chambery. The young girls, two and four, drive me back in time and send sentimental memories to the forefront of my mind as we embark on school days and camping weekends away.

To go back and feel that youthful version of freedom is a pipedream I would curse if ever felt to fruition. A warm idea, but I am thankful to lay on the coin’s other side, fingers tracing flowered memory with the real freedom of tracing any thought to its end.

Kids.

Let’s tuck our shirts into our sinched pants
& flip our small bodies around metal rungs
like kids do. Limbs flying in unrehearsed circles
& eyes open and seeing everything below reality.

Let’s tell the truth like kids do, say
what you mean because you mean it.
No hesitation- just pure unadulterated thought,
baked just long enough to travel head to tongue.

The fountain of youth isn’t a fountain at all,
but the dissolving colors behind pressed eyelids.
Dizzy heads and sticky fingerprints collapsing.
When did we trade drugs for what is just below closed fist?

This pilled fantasy of bursting universes
is never quite the same.
It smells of chemical static,
that chalked taste that giggles us into our youth.

We can still be kids in the way
our eyes close together.
In the way we cling to the ceiling
& imagine a life upsidedown.

Have tea with me here.
We can use the fan’s wings
as spiraling seats,
& the center bulb as our kettle.

I’ll pour you invisible light in hanging cup
& you’ll pretend to taste
because I say I do,
& it’s true.

This empty gulp of conjured air breathes
down our necks & we are okay
because we think love is a song
our parents sing to us.

I am happy because being a girl means more childhood choices.
How sad for you trapped in two-legged trousers
when I can trade them for dresses, blue and pink make violet
if I feel like it.

Who knew the world wanted my choices to end in fashion?
Thank god for the 21st century, not perfect but malleable,
but do I mean that? I do, I think.
Yes.

But let’s stay here,
where the future means walking on the floor,
letting gravity seep into our pores, spitting love back in the cup,
& finding temporary happiness in cocktailed playgrounds.

As we rolled our four wheels over gravel, our small company arrived at the Detente et Clapotis campsite. A swift tour of the grounds discovered the perfect pitch. 

A plot of land extending under shade and spilling green into the sun. Surrounded by the cover of trees and the tan walled back of the shower building, we were allotted a balance of privacy and access. 

Quickly, we unpacked bags and boxes, snacks in metal tins and wine bottles in blue plastic coolers. 

I unfurled a gray and green tent just like the infomercials. One springed release and there lands your crawl space home. Screen portal zipped like a shallow fortress against the campsite league of ants and insects in the night. 

I can’t remember the last time I camped, at least like this. Spine straight on thin padding you close your eyes and pretend is a real mattress. Nighttime chills and morning dew staved off by the tight wind of that nylon bag, tucking your toes like a child. 

I like it. The smell of wild mint underfoot at daybreak and the smell of wood and fire burning like the setting sun. 

Finding a personal plot with an adequate amount of grass and an absence of stoney gravel, I staked my tent’s four corners and settled into this modern semblance of original life. 

Dinner was three-minute pasta, a plastic scoop of tomato sauce, and a serrated sprinkle of parmesan, perfect. Taking my pasta slow, I sat back and listened to the stream of french voices bouncing mouth to mouth among my new friends. 

I can follow most of the conversation, the subject landing, and sentiment loading, like watching a film with a two-second audio lag. My ears pick our keywords and capitalize on them while my voiced sentences are broken and basic, sticking to the present tense and walking my vocabulary around what I want to say. 

Lessons.

Where do I run when home was you but now

I guess it always lived in me. 

Mother tongues glaze over my ears in ways I cannot understand

& with you, I could say whatever I wanted. 

Your friends lapped up my words with fresh ears

while you rolled your eyes, knowing all my stories. 

These tales of the past & moments with you I want to speak

but can’t. Not for lack of memory 

but of language among this foreign present.

Here, past tense is as hard to formulate as the thought 

of you, forced to stay in past without a goodbye. 

I work. Straining my ears to hear the meaning

in words I don’t know. My mind filling in the gaps

and glazing over your memory, practicing

the living of the present. 

For the Love of Annecy

Welcome to Annecy, a village as tranquil as its name. 

With an abundance of natural beauty paired with an overwhelming share of local history, Annecy stands as the perfect embodiment of French serenity. 

The leaves whisper age-old secrets under the shade of the Chapeau de Napoleon mountain as a collection of boats draw arrows across the everchanging hues of Lac d’Annecy. The sun, rising before seven in the morning and setting after eight at night, warms my skin and protects my limbs from the chill of lake-side wind. 

Perfect, this push and pull of light and air across my reclined body. 

Life in France is easy, though the language can be hard. In one way, it is easier for me than German, as I understand most of what is said to me. But as such, I feel compelled to speak only in French rather than simply ask for English. Thus, I am restricted to the present tense and short-jolted sentences. Mais, c’est la vie. 

Even with my restrictions, the language flows easier every day. Annecy is the perfect place for practice, and I am grateful for the opportunity. 

I am staying with family friends who have been more than welcoming (the stereotype of french bitterness is certainly false in this case), and it is incredible to get to know the quaint village in the hands of a family that has lived here for over a century. 

Words

The words, les mots

balance delicate between my molars.

Sentences running through my head

& dissolving in the drums of my ears.

Yes-ja-oui. je comprend,

mais je ne parle pas bien.

C’est difficile yet enbodied,

like a past-life memory 

begging to erupt. 

You asked me to speak to you.

These same words falling from my lips

& into yours.

Sultry, you said, the way I say

le pomme. The apple.

The sin that started it all. 

Were you the sin that started all of this?

Or was I?

Each day I repent. 

Washing and willing my body back

through time. Back, 

to when my French was not perfect

but fresh 

& you were nothing but a someday fantasy. 

Back to where I can forget 

& remember all over again.

Where I can seize the important letters 

& keep them. 

Where I can realize our last embrace

& leave it. 

Where I can teach myself the value of each moment.

Knowing these foreign affairs 

have foreign ends, 

& in their triumph find us

different as fire and powder.

A kiss we cannot consume,

my body strewn out 

& beaten by its hold on sanity.

Head swirling with words 

& memories I no longer own.

I know now, no matter what you tell me,

no infinity lasts. 

So I’ve taught my mind to collect them,

touching their bumps like braille,

for I can no longer see you.

& in this mourning, I learn

how to curve my lips into a smile for another

& to curl my tongue around what I used to know.

The city is delicate, with ancient stone lining roads built eons before their pavement was first graced by motors. With my gracious hosts, I am led through the small passages of the old village center.

We walk slowly, and this time it feels natural. I don’t mind the pace when the alps surround me, when there is so much new air to breathe, and history to be told. 

10 heure, the agreed-upon time to mount the mountain and view the lake from a new angle. 

Not too early or too late, the morning sun hung behind sparse clouds, breaking through with biblical rays and gracing us at the precipice of our ascent. 

It was only after twenty minutes that I began to sweat, and as they say, when it rains- it pours. Soon my breathing turned to panting and excitement turned to concentration on the rocks and roots forming a natural staircase ahead. 

Thankfully, another twenty minutes of this uphill battle brought us to the summit. The grand reprieve of open air and picturesque landscape. A panoramic view of Annecy and its surrounding villages that encircle the magnificent lake of the same name.

Incredible. 

The clearing where we found our rest used to be home to a great hotel and restaurant. Patrons would take a boat from the Annecy city center across the lake, where they would mount a cable car to complete the journey to the mountain’s peak. 

The building imposed upon the edge of the cliff, boat-like terrace facing the water while windows inside allowed guests to look in every direction. 

Unfortunately, 2001 brought about the destruction of this impressive structure. Now the flat-topped peak is home to three benches and a sign signaling the past existence of the hotel. Concrete posts erupt from the earth shallowly, like an echo of what once was. 

There, I sat. Closing my eyes and breathing in the fresh, thin air exhaled from the forest around me. I thought about all of the people who must have sat just here, centuries past, looking at the same view. 

Peak

How many legs and fingers

have crawled up and over this edge?

This green-faced mountain with

tumbling chin veering over its own body.

Beard long, clustered, and wooden,

Swinging and singing with the breeze.

And when it grows too long, the crest

purges its lungs with fire,

Charred ash floating like clouds.

This air is not for you or me,

this thick smoke means go,

But we never listen. We stay,

slicing through skin and bone with serrated edge.

Taking the silent severance of limbs as a sign of progress.

Building and breaking over stony back,

climbing again, where we are doomed to fall.

Austrian First Impressions

The new apartment has a bath. This detail initially shrugged off, has become a luxury. And I am grateful for the simple pleasure of a steaming tub.

Perched in the attic of a red-toned apartment building, my white windows stick their noses to the street. The sill- wide enough to hold my body- does, as my eyes roam the modest skyline.

Orange talons, filed by my idle hands, pull my shoulders up and out the slanted window and over the street.

Lion-headed guards flank the building to my left, their jaws clenched tight around marble rings. Behind their carved heads, the building’s stone is veiled in an Olympic sea color, softly fading with weather’s attention. To the right, the clouds consume the horizon’s view.

After the breeze had adequately nibbled my shoulders, the bath was ready: steam wafting from soapy waters, illusioned fingers curling to circle my rain-chilled figure.

Here I am recounting my activities inside an AirBnB while free to roam a foreign city. But listen, the days here are slow. Breaks don’t break your schedule; you drift through quiet corners and cobblestone corridors unbothered and unfazed.

I am fast.

I make the most of each pound on the pavement, marching through an urgent mission toward whatever color in my vision can slow my gaze. The local lull doesn’t slow me down; they linger along the side of the street in quiet clusters, shoes pressed in a deliberately ambling procession.

Even so, sometimes, one catches my eye.

Girl Crossing the Street Vienna, Austria. 08/21/22.

Pink is her favorite color,

So she wears it in a flash below darkness. 

A quick zip up the other side of her sole,

Pointing teeth up to scarlet head.

I wonder if her step walks along Wien or Vienna.

Tongue purring along different letters for the same sound,

Curling around their last letter. 

Distinction stamped and pressed 

In the darting color 

across her shoe.

I feel like I am on 2x speed as even the river seems content to spin lazily towards its spill. I sound bitter, but I promise I appreciate the change of pace. With ease, I can wind through the thin crowds and find my way to my next objective in a snap.

Contrasting their leisurely steps, mine gift me more time for my own kind of leisure. Hence, my bath.

As I soak, I think about the constant veil of rain, how it peppers the river in its rush, drops joining the current as it drips along the graffiti-colored channel.

Green. No, more aqua and turquoise in color. Unlike the crystal waters of Munich, Vienna’s add to the city’s color palette. Salmon pink, grey stone, touch-of-blue sky, and gold, darkened by the turn of time.

Squinting your eyes and tilting your head, turns back the clock. The gold is bright and polished, the apartment buildings freshly painted and carved. These bones are still there.

Venders are now burrowed in the lower levels of each building, window-display eyes opening ancient brick. Construction does cluster around street corners, but with the object of maintaining, not reimagining. Restaurants take an opening and spill out onto the street, littering the ground with tables and chairs and spritzers under light rain.

At these restaurants, you are brought water without asking—a miraculous gift for my dry American tongue.

I have grown accustomed to Germany’s (as the rest of Europe’s) gatekeep of water. The simple drink is guarded by prices higher than beer. Perhaps the Austrian glass is enough to compensate for Vienna’s lack of Summer sun.

When I arrived at the Munich train station to make my departure, I realized I had assumed it would take me much longer to trek my two suitcases and hefty backpack from apartment to train and now had an extra half hour to burn at the central station.

A make-shift chair formed by an overturned suitcase separated me from the grisly ground, and I began people-watching to pass the time.

Cigarette Vending Machine

Chubby fingers stick to the plastic pressed buttons
Toddler eyes wide, hands spread in plump starfish- reaching
Her father turns his attention to his burning cigarette
Tiny legs dance in pools of day-old rain
Anger comes with discarded drops but
At the center, he loves her
The curled-haired nymph
as pink and pouting as all innocence
But golden chains hang his ego like soft silk
Legs dangling over their own reflection
Empty cigarette boxes litter this floor
Cardboard universes for all
She inhales tobacco breath as she looks inside
Stars shine through worn corners
Thick is the smell, the smoke, the ghost
Burned out and discarded, he can’t find her
His hard hands can’t hold on to both
Pocketing his cigarette box
He only finds it empty when pressed flat
A wet galaxy, crumpled with grief

Leaving Munich was not without difficulty. Not only did I imagine myself indifferent to having an actual seat on the train, but the railed road was taking me away from new friends and now-familiar street corners.

A backrest bolstered my departure as we pulled away from the second stop. I had found a backbone in the cascading steps at the crossroads of the train car’s exit doors. Resting back on backpack, my eyes were graced by a few fifteen-minute almost-naps before the final stop.

Emerging from the stationed train, my feet touched Viennese soil. Now the German language doesn’t mean German lips, but I am finding my rest tucked in the rainy streets of Wien.

Escape to Eibsee

In that sweet space, those first inches warmed by the sun’s stare, I float. 

Back flat against the cooler depths and the fish that dart below. Head amid my own flourish of sunlight, I close my eyes and listen.

Much like my afternoon at Starnberger See, my ears cling to the flutter of birds and their leaves, catching the music. Much like that afternoon, I feel at peace in the nature that overwhelms industrial growth. 

Yet, in contrast to the serene solitude of Starberger, Eibsee is populated by a metropolis of visitors. The young and the old stretch their arms in large arcs propelling their paddle boards, cycle their legs in the dual seats of paddle boats, or simply rest their sun-soaked bodies on the rocks. 

In my own drifting rest, I am joined by a duck. Traveling alone like me, she makes no sound as she splits waves with her soft and straight brown feathers. 

Her orange-ringed beak smiles at me, an exchange likely a symptom of my solo travel. All the same, I witness a sense of peace between the lake’s dwellers and its inhabitants. A passing recognition of life and a contentment in this coexistence. 

Climbing the white-spotted sky is the Zugspitze, claiming the title of the tallest mountain in Germany. At its top, you can see Austria’s alps sitting opposite the Eibsee. 

My mind cues Roger Moore, The Spy Who Loved Me, carrying Bond’s ski poles in wild crescents and planting them unconvincingly in the sharp and snowy decline. His Hollywood-blown hair cut with faint blue in front of the Apls’ chilled white. 

The real scene was filmed in the Swiss Alps, mere miles from Zugspitze’s peak. 

Even in the Summer, Zugspitze is sparkled in snow for those who take the cable-car ride to its top. Below the dusted snow, the rest of us bathe in Eibsee’s warmed waters. Rocks make up the shore that lines Eibsee’s crystal refreshment, the worthy payout for its long journey. 

In Munich, I rose at a respectable 8:15, meeting my friends in the kitchen for a coffee before we departed. Five people in a small station wagon took to the autobahn, dropping a few at their stops along the way. 

I passed the time in the fields we swept through. On either side, sprawling meadows were sprinkled with clusters of black forest trees, guarded by the Alps’ shifting shade. 

An hour took us to Garmisch, the town that greets Eibsee and the mountains that surround its valley. Its streets are home to quaint Bavarian living interrupted by two American military bases. 

Hosting diplomats and foreign ambassadors, Garmisch’s charm comes in its traditional architecture and friendly culture. It is clear the small town offers some of the best of the Bavarian countryside. 

As we reached the entrance to Eibsee, an over-crowded parking lot turned the remaining 15 minutes of our drive into a 50-minute hike. I relished the opportunity to take off into the solitude offered by the tree-lined path through the forest. 

The grass green and tickling my shins gave way to lincoln-log houses and widely enclosed pasture spaces for cattle. This seemingly endless view met my feet aside the trickling river that runs through the forest’s clusters of trees. 

The abundance captivated my eyes but could not absorb the sweat crawling down the back of my neck. The untamed magnificence powerless to take the slight incline’s burning from my thighs or stop the sun from burning its blushing presence upon my shoulders. 

I blessed the trees who gifted me slivers of shade with their narrow stocks. 

Swatting bugs from my calves and grazing my forearm across my brow, the just over two-mile hike passed. The forest’s trees opened their congregation to the face of Zugspitze and a wink of the Eibsee. I made it. 

I could not wait any longer; taking the straight path, my legs did the thinking. 

Declining the final steps between my humid body and the much-deserved dive into the coolness promised by the glittering blue. Cascading pebbles followed me down the steep ledge as I used roots and rocks to make my way down the fifteen-foot drop to the shore. 

My striped and soaked shirt soon found rest next to my denim shorts tossed on the edge of a larger stone as my body embraced the long-awaited depths. 

Hungry and tired, I took my body out of the water to lay my towel across the smoothest patch of rocks I could find. My legs collapsed as I silently reached for yesterday’s schnitzel and kasespatzle, and I quieted my aching stomach. 

Despite their desired flatness, the sharp curves beneath me made their own peaked mountain range. This lake-side rest lacking the same softness as that of its water, Eibsee beckoned. 

Here I find myself. Hovering in the brief space that collects the sun. Blissful among the rest of nature.

The Cycle of Your Water

The crisp kiss of that familiar.

That crystal sameness,

embracing your limbs as you fall,

collecting the current of your hair as you curl.

This lapping at your feet is only the hearth of home

when you are consumed,

when drowned in its depths, your

eyes closed and trusting the surface’s clarity extends

through its dark waters.

But you have to blink,

to check,

to open your swollen eyes. 

This infinite moment proves momentary, 

severed from your skin

as you drip the way 

it lingers. 

Left shivering and cold,

you look back.

Glance the mixed truth in its waves,

glare at your rippling reflection.

Only the perfect temperature

when surrounded, its

playful splashes touch you,

making falling moments cling to flesh.

You want to give in.

To jump.

To crawl back into that weightless place.

That hope.

But as you drip dry,

goosebumps replace its droplets

take their own slow moments to

disappear into your skin as

your toes curl

gripping the earth,

letting its harsh edges take you

to a new shore. 

A Day Trip To Starnberger See

Loving. 

This word writes itself in a cursive flourish across my mind as the water’s swell pulls my body up and down. Rocking me as if a baby in loving arms into a serene dream. 

The waves lap at the gentle shore, softly. Quieter still is the breeze, whistling through leaves and the beaks of shorebirds, buzzing with the bees who lovingly rest upon a bed of discarded lettuce. 

A few hours earlier, I grabbed a Bavarian sandwich and iced coffee from Rischart before catching the first leg of my trip to Starnberger See. Two train rides later found me waiting for the 975 bus that would take me the rest of the way to the waterfront. 

Five minutes passed before turning into ten, then twenty, and I was still waiting. Sweat marked my temples while my hand took a permanent station on my forehead. 

With the bus delay breaking the ice, an older German woman began speaking to me, using German, English, and Spanish to communicate. 

She told me this bus was always late or never came at all. Yesterday she waited an hour for the 975 to take her four stops. Great. 

Passing the time, she told me about how she left her bikini hanging on a big tree she frequents with her friends, noting her lack of concern; it was clear that Bavaria is a place of neighborly trust. A place where you could leave your belongings swinging in the breeze for days, undisturbed. How strange.

Soon our conversation turned to the Bavarian climate. What used to be sunny Summers and white Winters are now hot and humid then snowless. Global warming, this word is universal.

Approaching forty minutes, the bus finally arrived, chock-full of backpack-toating students and the walking stick generation. As we drifted along the sparsely populated road to the lake, my new friend pointed out the small town of Starnberg’s most notable landmarks.  

“There is the college, they can walk to the beach in five minutes.”

“There’s the kids pool, there is a sauna inside but the pool has too many kids.”

“There is the castle, Schloss Berg, but be careful- its private.”

At last, we arrived at our stop. The only riders to get off, we took to the quiet path that passed abandoned mansions and dissolved into the water. 

As we parted, I wished her luck and took off towards the castle in search of a calm clearing I could claim for the afternoon. The abundant trees arched their growing arms toward each other, enclosing the path in a world of green. Peaking through the leaves, the blue-eyed lake rippled with the rhythm of the wind. 

Half a mile into my stroll, the trail opened up to a small field of grass lying just before the rocks that marked the entrance to the cool waters of Starnberger See. 

I called it mine, flying my towel in the soft air before giving it rest on a patch of thick grass under a leafy awning. Unwrapping my sandwich, I relished the mustard taste on my tongue, gifting the pickle and tomato to the insects humming a few feet away. 

With the insects at bay, I could stretch out and relax, weaving the yarn of my latest crochet project as the Jets sang Cigarettes and Cola in my ear. 

It wasn’t long before the promise of cool crystal waves pulled my body from its place under the tree’s shade. 

Warm. Starnberger’s waters kissed my knees with the fresh warmth of a cooled coffee. Not quite the same as the sea-side air, but not far from it. 

Submerging myself in this embrace, I felt myself let go of a breath of air. 

This is why I came. 

This is why I came alone.

For this perfect union of bodies. 

For this quiet paradise.

Petty Joys

If you were here, I would care for these petty grievances. 

I would be bothered 

by the ants who cross the intersection of my toes. 

by the wasps who braid through my golden hair,

thinking the strands stalks in their garden. 

I would feel a sting in the lapping water that grips my waist

or recognize the sharp slice of rocks beneath me

realize the eroded edge that challenges my callouses. 

I would feel loss as my beloved chalice is lost in the waves,

would swim desperately after its bobbing head,

instead of letting it go.

But you are my grievance, and

you are not here to make me petty.

To juxtapose these small tragedies with your brilliance,

to make me see the rest of the world less perfect than your smile. 

Without you, I have these natural perfections, I have myself.

This is my gift. My privilege. My soft comfort. 

With you lost, everything else is found.

The Beginnings of a Munich Love-Affair

If Berlin is New York City, then Munich is Chicago. 

Straddling the heavy traffic of tourism, business, and university youth with abundant nature, authentic culture, and neighborly warmth, Munich is truly the beating heart of German Bavaria. 

As an American girl with German heritage, fitting in is easy… as long as I don’t open my mouth. Yet sadly, a smile only lasts so long before it is my turn to speak, and “Hallo, Danke” falls short of ordering me Rosé. Once this happens, the mirage is shattered, and I must reluctantly accept the “English menu” from the lovely waiter who just spent five minutes conversing with my blank-grin face. 

At one such place, Pizzazza, my inevitable glass of Rose was so good I agreed to go on a date with the bartender. Walking down Nymphenburger Straße with someone who has lived here for over ten years, you can’t help but feel the comforting presence of community that undeniably envelopes the city. Smiles meet smiles as you cross paths with pedestrians, and once you break the ice, they are eager to hear where you are from, what you are doing, and what you think about their captivating city. 

Aside from the countless family-run businesses contributing to Munich’s neighborly atmosphere, another amiable presence lies in the lush and strikingly green parks that mark every few blocks of the metropolis. 

Grunwald Park is a great place to start, offering a bite-sized preview of what Munich’s larger parks supply. In grassy clearings, the young sunbathe and play football across from play structures populated by their even younger counterparts. As you walk along the park’s bench-lined path, you will find people sitting with their partners, friends, and dogs, enjoying the sweet sounds of nature that ring through the trees.

Crossing Grunwald, you meet one end of the Schloßgartenkanal river that feeds into the Badenburger See lake resting behind Munich’s Nymphenburg Palace. For fans of expansive manors, carefully manicured gardens, gushing fountains, gaudy gold embellishments, and statues that hover between artistically impressive and uniquely disturbing, the Versaille-inspired Nymphenburg Palace and Park will captivate you. 

Perched perfectly across the street from the palace’s entrance, Metzgerwirt restaurant provided the refreshing Dunkle beer and delicious potato soup I needed after charting just a percentage of Nymphenburg Park’s 490 acres. 

Despite the humidity of Munich’s July, it remains the most walkable city I have visited. Level ground and the shade the frequent forests afford make each journey as interesting, beautiful, and exciting as the destination. 

On my journey home from Nymphenburg Palace, I couldn’t help but take a moment on a riverside park bench to greet its unphased ducks and write.

Warm & New & Known

Soft sun glazes over eyes

owned by ancestors-

My iris blueprinted by bavarian veins 

before braving the word America.

Where we stay crisp & starched,

bleaching over heritage with pop culture,

tumbling our DNA through the melting pot

of oil and water who refuse to see 

likeness in each other’s liquid humanity. 

From short lens I scream:

See through this cycling,

and go home. Find your old,

find something new where it all began-

add, elaborate, stop bleaching.

Hear the harsh letters fall,

schön from honey blonde lips,

the same sweet you have & harvest.

New veins pump blood as ancient as the Bavarian spruce,

whose roots network under my planted feet.

Pulsing, absorbing, rediscovering its own soil.

Pushing honey into new leaves, just

to taste them again with the next season. 

Circling, cycling, a ringed infinity

showing me how 

my drops of honeyed blood bleed home;

telling me this is only where we start.