A Certain Kind of Debt
You warned me about striving.
You said once they gave you a house
with waves of peppermint in the backyard,
the Library of Babylon, and free lunch,
they would take it away. Still, I ate
the fake meat they served on Fridays,
always alone with my petite jar of grief.
I liked the jar because it gave me something
to look forward to. The truth is uncomfortable—
now that’s something I told you.
I told you other things too—that we would
end up down south again in that city
of tarot card readers, storms, and gin.
In the summer, it’s terror for people
who can’t take it. But we can.
We were never really going to get away.
