charlottesville va
TRANSCRIPT
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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.
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Your skin was water-
colored and I soaked my
hair in dirty water
to give it some life.
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I stamped on the dirt
because it was menial
and summer
and you werent looking
over here.
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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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