Charlottesville Va

8/12/2019 Charlottesville Va

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(text by Kate Coleman, images by Connor Frew)


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CHARLOTTESVILLE

VA


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Shimmering green

against hard dark,slick with rainwater,

keeps us going.

Sinead plays inside

the car

and usand the fog on the window

doesnt jar me

because its all almost

like going to sleep.

Police on the side of the street;

maybe theyre painting the wallthat is often marked

with birthdays

and other achievements.

A traumatizing end

to Different Drum

and nostalgia

dripping like the

slip slip slipping rain


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on our wooden home.

Just before were in

and hit with more,

you know, life,

we are out in the cold,

weathered world

only aware of the tunesand the colors.

Nothing Compares 2 U


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Sometimes I scream

I will get there!

and sometimes I deflate.


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i. I tell you congratulations

and the confetti becomes plaster.


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ii. What you listened to

listened towhat I saw

what I saw

you listen to.


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iii. In rearranging my room

I see that I got more like youbefore I didnt.


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iv. Its easy to be

removedwhen yourea white girl

in front of a mirror

pinching your stomach

and speaking like a rapper.


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When she was fifteen,

she kissed a boy with deep brown skin.When Anne Frank was fifteen,

she stopped writing in her journal.

Legs relaxed like a man,

she sat with him (so spritely!)

and he (gently) pestered herwith those questions

those questions!

like he always had.

I miss the wildflowers

on the Texas highways.

Texas is just

a country road.

And she looked at him and thought:

I have a real live boy.

He asked and the girl took.

No one ever wants to be home.

She tried to explain the things


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she had learned, but they all

petered out as questionswhen did Zwarte Piet become

just a friend?

He always made fun of her laugh

and it made her feel more person

and less girl.

He saw more as cigarettes

than artistic liberties

and looks were never more dirty

than when walking past

a cracked (open) door.

She once asked

if she was graceful

because she was so sure that

that was what it came down to

and the boy had

no idea.

They were twelve.

Legs spread like a woman,

she sat in front of the mirror

and wondered what all the fuss was about.


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The white white sandof an (often) forgotten trip

was soft beneath

the surface

and her fingers

as she left anything of

faded mankind egoon the beach.

She remembered when she was quoting

the cartoon movie

Yellow Submarine

and the big police man

who beckoned a cat,and her father asked

come again?

because he was sure

shed said something dirty.

Nose to nose,

realization came in the form

of guilty scrambling

from the celibate couch.

Distracted by (nearly)


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someone else,

she cried when she thoughtthe boy had made her fall in love

again, when all he had

done was get her excited.

Sitting in a car

at night during a longdrive, she couldnt bring

herself to say

he wasnt circumcised.


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And I promise I was

there I rememberthe avocados

and we were there

for twelve days.

-

Your skin was water-

colored and I soaked my

hair in dirty water

to give it some life.

-

I stamped on the dirt

because it was menial

and summer

and you werent looking

over here.

-

Hey flat-foot,

you need to stop thinking

you know Jack Kerouac.


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We both remember the faeries.

Suspended like our disbelief, twinklingyet static in the silhouette(d) trees,

tinted like the white-blue Christmas lights

that we always pass (over) for the golden.

Despite the time spent on those liquid roads,

I remember very few specific instances:

1. Crumbs from strawberry Poptarts get stuck

under my nails

as my hands hide in the olive green coat and

I breathe

unexpected fire. My homecoming dress is

hidden.

So close to school, her home was my home

and these were our streets.

2. Prior to the first door slammed in my face,

we talked to a man

whose sweater was the same mustard

yellow as his house.

Thank god I wrote about it then. Thank

god I understood how important it was


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then too. Thank god she writes about

my house too.

3. Believe it or not, heavy duty sharpie

is all you need to declare your love

anonymously, poetically, and in a way

where you can experience vandalism for the

first time, four laced Chucks hittingthe sidewalk hard.

Now when she asks me to come

(to her) home, I drive past endless trees

and turn at a small shack I know

only for the sweet tea I have never tasted.

The speed limit is highbut I always sightsee.

4. Walking down the parallel yellow lines.

Its barely memories now, just slightly less-

recent present. We walk with heavy lungs

and racing eyes (ooh! Lottery tickets!

They always throw the dead ones out.)

5. We were on the roof

that I always referenced as the tar


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roof in my head, though I knew better,

and you pointed to every pastsexual act that had occurred there.

Before we talked about the love of her life,

funny things, and classmates, and now

we talk about the love of her life,

mental disorders, sex, and mothers(I have never talked so much about vaginas!)

6. The last walk there had

raindrops sprinkled on the traffic lights

and fog clinging to the ground

but we stayed out.

She talks about wars and maps and

all I can think isyou are my country road,

you are my streetlit asphalt,

you are the crunching forest, you are

the twinkling backyard, you are the

nostalgic middle school soccer field,

you are the car next to mine in a parking lot

I have never parked in before, you are

the time that never felt wasted, the decision

that never disappointed you

are the bright orange planets you are


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the second skin to warm your bones you are

theold old fabric you

are lace and comforter right next to me you

are crying and funny funny and

no secrets no secrets no secrets

you text me first you hugging me

before we started without one another. Ihave never consistently admired anyone

more than you.

Thank god I wrote about it then.


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