story

When I take vacation I vacate. Or lean to the side, continuously. I can tell you, this is not a confession. It is an endeavor. To search for the limits of vacation, in terms of time and space. Where once was a beach, a tree, a broken heart, now exists a circle of accent and shades of tropical color. Where once existed optimism and woven dresses, now entails the continuum of gendered variation, skins layered with complexity. I was once heading in every direction. Leaving from every which way, or toward any other means of communication, when I decided. To vacate. The verb. Empty. Flee. Undo. Undone. Without. Dismissed. Disappeared. Once I went to the woods. Grew beans. Lived in a cabin. Once I went to the sea. Caught fish. A fish. Followed that fish to my death. Once I traveled to Venice. Winding streets, lost forever to the present. Once I hid in an attic and wrote poems for months on end. Once I traveled to Florida. Found love. Lost it. And traveled home again, alone. Once, even the horizon had become too much. Leaning, further on, against the end of days, I can tell you, this is a mystery story. Science fiction contained by metaphors of the past. Having left only traces, contained by syntax. And vertical form. In this space, having vacated every other, I found conflict. And resolved to continue on.