More Than You Know

These are my souvenirs.

There's also rose petals from Valentine's Day.
They don't photograph well.

People ask, Where're'ya from? so I answer the name of the high school I attended. And I don't tell anyone who I've met or where I've been or even that I ran away and returned again.

I've been to both of those postcard destinations.

Grand Canyon at Shoshone Point. It looked like forever.

Flagstaff at Mars Hill. At the same time of night and the city looked like diamonds and we were smoking too many cigarettes and then we snuck into the Lowell Observatory and then we climbed a water tower. That was in January.

There's a railroad spike. I'm glad I kept it. And we were walking along the railroad tracks. And then the policeman saw that we were trespassing and he got out of his car and started to follow us. So we escaped through a trailer park. This was in January.

There's a ticket for a symphony. And he was high and I wasn't. Only then did it occur to me that he really was a drug addict. After February 15, he disappeared until February 29. And February 29 was so sad. That was the night I climbed out my window and stood on my rooftop to cry and he left. And we both ended up going to drunken parties and he got caught by the police and I didn't. Yes, that was in February.

There's a spoon. I was going for a picnic in the park by the library about three miles from home and I bought strawberry soy yogurt at the natural food store and I got to the park and I realized that I couldn't eat the yogurt because I didn't have a spoon. So I walked maybe another mile to a Christian thrift store and I bought a spoon for 10 cents and I bought a sweater and I bought a shot glass for 25 cents, because I knew I'd be needing it. Then I walked back to the park. And had a picnic alone. Then I walked home three miles. That was in early March.

And there's incense. Lots of stuff of the kind you just can't find in stores around here. There's two packages unopened of my favorite kind. They'll stay that way.

Once upon a time, I was crossing a parking lot the night before my train left for Chicago, and I was walking home. A woman dressed in all gray stepped out of her car and began walking toward me. She asked, in the best Southern accent I've ever heard, Are you from around here?

So I said, Yes, I am.
And I told her how to get to the restaurant she was looking for.