still standing.

portland has come and gone, and the squinting square of sunlight on the front porch that felt like an album cover has faded out into the back of a pile of letters in my mind. I couldn't get the photograph to come out clearly enough, to make it look how it felt: all sitting there on a couch, kind of like a leathery seat from an old car, where it used to be all one piece and nobody wore seatbelts. slouched down, feet up on the railing, talking about love, and old carter family records, and college. realizing that we don't know each other very well, and how the facts make us better friends. walking, and walking, and walking, burning inland portland sun burning my shoulders sweat drip persistently into my eyes. the people were nice, and some were forced ironic, and there were snapshots of soft couches gauze curtains in the hot breeze, flowers on tabletops, shiny kitchen sinks.

I really got to see the unromanticized side of touring life: the stringless, follow-your-heart bliss often accompanied by lonely-in-a-full-room-full days. like sleeping on a couch, when you have to wait for the party that goes until 4am to stop, since it's not your bed, even though right then it's your bed. these pieces are blurring together with the curtains in my new apartment, and the skydiving, and the movie scenes of mountains and how I practically found God strapped to a strange man at a hundred and thirty miles an hour. curtains, curtains, pictures, picture. shag carpets, soaring hearts, someone else's family and the noises in their walls and doors and how the kitchen floor felt under my feet and how the ceramic tile was smooth under my fingertips until the breaks of rough grout, glass and sandpaper. love and rockets.

I've got to get back to work.