i'm vaguely of the notion that the things i don't write down don't really exist. if i fail to record accurately the glint of sunlight off the delaware and the way it shimmered the trees, the swift darting minnows around my toes, the ache in my shoulders this morning and the fact that jason's fantastic great-aunt and i have the same watch, if i don't capture my first fireflies and the scratch of hotel sheets and the eight o'clock light turning the grass a lurid, livid green, then maybe it never happened and even though i fell in love with jason's whole family and the high wooded edges of northeaster pa, maybe its just one more day.

likewise and reciprocal, maybe if i don't mention how i'm leaving in a month, leaving again, how i'm terrified and torn, or if i omit the dull scent of regret that hangs all over everything like a reoccuring dream, if i describe the bird that careened down a pathway with most of a sandwich in its ridiculous tiny beak but not the way i felt when i got home to find my tomatoes dead, if i catalogue my joys but disregard my jagged fear, maybe i'm really okay, in this city, in this skin.