Hushpuppies

Listen.
Let it wash over you, pass through a curvy piece
of skin, permeate your brain,
you are not alone.
Saltwater is a favorite, a necessity,
indigo skies have faded to their true black
and the stars have gone out,
for tonight;
You are not alone.
And wishing for it, will give only
more faded black dinginess.
Listen.
Syrupy sweet, sliding over
the airwaves towards porousness,
because you are not alone.
Listen, listen listen:
You. Are. Not. Alone.
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That's it.  I'm really struggling to come up with something better to say, but I'm struggling too much to struggle with words.  All I can do is listen, looking up at my faded indigo black skies, devoid of stars, for tonight.
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"I can finally see, you're as fucked up as me,
so how do we win?"

That Kind of Winter

Winter, a time I've dreaded since last April.  Winter, a time I've been waiting for since last April. Every time someone says they're glad it hasn't been so cold yet, I must restrain myself from scoffing (I usually fail).  I can't explain it, I love the snow, and the cold, but I hate what it used to entail for me.  My life was ski, hate self for not skiing well, ski, go free ski, decide to become a freestyle skier, go back to racing, hate myself; for such a long time.  I tried so hard to convince myself that I loved it, but I didn't.  I loved being able to be on the mountain every day, because I loved the feeling of my skis on the snow, and I still love skiing.  But wasting your life to look at numbers on a clock, wasting your life to wonder what you've done wrong, to constantly be critiqued by everyone and most harshly by yourself, is not a worthwhile pursuit.  Maybe for someone who loves it, but I couldn't lie about loving it any more.
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"Are you skiing this year?"
"Do they have a team at Smith?"
"How's the training going?"
"Have you raced yet?"

No is the answer to most of those questions, and the no is said with a smile because I am so happy. I've never been so happy, to not be skiing.  I haven't gone out for a single day, and that is ok.  I probably will, before I go back to school, or maybe I won't.  And if I do, it won't be about carving and my ankle flex, my forward pressure or my inside hand.  It will be about me.  Me.

I lost myself, those six years, I lost myself.  "Private school," it was, it is, my apology.  A "special" school, I say, averting my eyes while I describe what it is.  "Intense,"  I produce, with some amount of difficulty.  I try to make my eyes crinkle around the corners, like my mom's do, because it makes her look more relatable.  Nothing about it is relatable, shouldn't have to be relatable, but I try so desperately.  My apology to the world, "private school."  I'm sorry.
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"Private school," my apology,
for my father who will probably go to his grave
in his work chair.
"Private school," my apology,
for my mother who will never understand the desire
in others to exclude.
My apology, for all the trips, for the gear and the books,
for the money.  The money, the money, the money.
"Private school," my apology,
and for that, I should be sorry.
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"It's that kind of winter", my dad keeps saying.  It is, I guess.  The kind where I can't stop staring at everything that is going on-a freight train of activity, of outdoors and indoors and netflix and baking, of my mom and dad, of wine, a hive of motion which surrounds me.
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"Let's get rich and buy our parents homes in the south of France,
Let's get rich and give everybody nice sweaters and teach them how to dance,
Let's get rich and build a house on a mountain, making everybody look like ants,
From way up there, you and I,
You and I."