Remember This Of All

Felt-tipped markers for lists. Lists of prison lit, revisions, screenplays to grade. A freshman with thick brown curls props his skateboard against the door, shares his script about bombs dropping on his Lebanon home. He was 14. 9 AM Playwriting gang.

Spent office hours in the heart of campus. Sunshine. Reading interviews of The Wooster Group. About their 2002 production. I was 14 then? Fast. Don shorts for a night scoot to Flour's cottage in the hip neighborhood. We walk the sidewalks and talk about her break-up. It's raw, it's red. Emotional equivalent of reaching for that last handful of M&Ms and realizing you already ate it. "I remember that," I think, but there's a sheen over those histories. It's good to be here. She squeezes my arm. "That's him." The boy happens to be bicycling by. I hear her heart plop to the road.

I am so happy lately. There are reasons, but there are always reasons. There are also always reasons not to be. I don't know why the scales have tipped one to the other, but they have. And I am grateful. It's not always this way. I thank everything. "Remember this," I tell me, "this."

Why can't you see the sky isn't green anymore?
Why don't you know what I need on these shores?