by Chris Baron
and the change on the inside have finally met.
At the base of the trail,
past the parking lot,
we see the simple blue-green picture of a bus,
the number 61, that will take us back.
End of Summer
It feels good to sit,
rock back and forth
in bus rhythm
along Shoreline Highway.
Jorge draws quietly in his sketchbook
as I tell him more about the game
me and Pick are making.
We feel the heaviness of late August,
and as we near the turn into Bolinas,
I understand that this might be our last week.
I have to go to school in Mill Valley.
I tell him about my school,
and what I think it might be like
now that so much has changed.
He looks at me. Smiles.
I hope you don’t change too much.
He draws a hand coming
out of the center of the lake,
and in the hand is a long silver sword.
The 61 bus circles into town.
It’s his stop.
Jorge puts his hand on my shoulder,
tears out the picture of the lake,
hands it to me. Bye, he says.
Later, I say, and he heads off the bus.
The bus drives,
along the lagoon,
past Seal Island,
where pups surface
near the shore,
getting braver,
down past the houses,
to the last stop in the town.
The Return
I get off the bus,
my pack heavy,
my shoes untied.
I see myself in the window
of a truck as I walk by.
The window makes me look
twice my width,
my legs thick,
my face doubled,
covered in dirt.
At the nursery,
the wide gate is open.
I can see lights
strung up, and some colorful flags.
Zamfir is playing,
the pan flute wailing out of the gate.
People wander through the nursery
drinking champagne.
Lisa is there.
She’s holding a paintbrush
and standing next to an oil painting
on an easel.
She sees me.
I imagine for a split second
that I’m the lost adventurer
scruffy and worn from the trail.
I am tough, distant and hard to reach
even for her.
In the next second,
I imagine I am as wide as
the truck-window me.
Awkward and waddling in.
Before I decide who I actually am,
she smiles, runs over,
throws her arms around me.
I feel every
single
part of her
against my body.
Well? she says. How was it?
And in this moment,
I remember just how much
I miss her, and I explode
about the whole trip.
We step back in time.
Brother and sister,
best friends, as the confusing parts of me
shut off long enough to remember
that I don’t have to be mad at her,
that with her I can just be me.
The Painting
What is this? I ask,
and I walk to where
the new painting rests
on the easel.
Oil and acrylic
in earthy tones,
a woman
with claws
sitting beneath
a full moon,
crouched,
her legs
alive in fiery muscle,
barefoot,
her dark eyes
animal,
deep brown,
fierce but thoughtful.
Beneath her feet
the words
Deer Woman, eyes open.
It’s called a mara, Lisa says,
a Deer Woman, kind of.
I read these lines in a poem.
A mara’s like a werewolf
in Sweden.
Lisa’s painting is so different
from anything else here,
like a part of Lisa
I knew was there all along,
but didn’t quite
recognize until now.
Your mom and me, well,
she’s been showing me how
to work in texture, and …
I’ve learned so—I cut her off.
It’s you! I say.
I mean if you were
a Swedish werewolf creature.
Sorry
The Artist comes outside,
a glass of champagne in one hand,
a long cigarette in the other.
I’m not sure if she’ll be mad
at me for not calling,
or if she’s been worrying about us.
If I tell her about almost
getting hypothermia,
or dropping The Diet Book
in the water or any of the other stuff,
she may never let me do anything again.
I take a deep breath, smile nervously,
Hi, Mom, I say through the crowd.
She stops suddenly,
walks over
looks me straight in the eyes
like she’s reading my mind,
then hugs me extralong.
Ari, she says,
tell me everything.
I’m tired, I say,
and she agrees and says that
later she’ll make some Level 3 food,
even some bread tonight.
She walks off to greet guests.
Lisa pinches my arm.
Do you want to walk down to the beach?
Okay, I say. Even though I am so tired.
This is what we do.
We go to the beach.
On the way there,
she takes my hand,
and then she smacks
her shoulder into mine,
and I do it back.
She asks,
So what would Thall
and Elysium do right now?
I tell her they would most likely
take over this defenseless town.
She agrees and pulls
an air sword from her side.
Onward, she says.
When we get to the beach,
her sword shimmers red
in the sunset,
and our feet dig into the sand.
My heart is beating faster,
and Lisa can feel it.
Are you okay? she asks.
Sorry, I say.
You always say sorry.
You know you don’t have to be.
I’m the one who should be sorry.
I should be a better friend.
Something Takes Over
I think about what
I just went through,
the night on the mountain,
the wet, the cold, the elk, the pond.
Then something happens,
like electricity
through the beach that
turns the sand to glass
and shatters into
some strange courage
somewhere between myself
and who I want to be.
It’s time, I think.
I need to tell her.
What Happens Next
Lisa, I think I love you.
She looks at me.
No, you don’t, she says.
She holds both my hands,
stays quiet for a long time.
You think you do,
she says.
You love me
because I love you.
You are like my brother.
My only real friend.
Because you’re one of the only people
I’ve ever known who loves me for more than this.
She lets go and steps back,
waves her hand over her body.
For a while, we stare at the ocean,
watch the waves break into the sand.
She cries a little, softly.
You and your mom,
you love me no matter what,
like I’m a real person.
You let me be a kid.
The world sees me one way,
ever since I was little,
I had to be like a grown-up,
looking after my mom,
dealing with all of her boyfriends.
She pauses, crosses her arms,
looks toward the ocean
into some memory,
then she starts again.
You guys see me for who I am.
I love you, Ari,
because even though
you didn’t hear from me,
you expected me to be here,
like a friend should be.
I want to believe her,
but the words pour out anyway.
Is it because I’m too big?
She shakes her head.
It never mattered to me
what you look like.
I care about you,
and I’m proud of you.
You’re trying be healthy,
trying to be a better you.
She smiles at me,
like she’s desperate
for me to understand.
You think you’re mad at me for kissing that boy—
Why did you? I interrupt.
It’s not about you, Ari.
She raises her voice
like she’s talking out
into the universe,
past me and everything else.
I’m so sorry, Ari.
I didn’t think about how
it might hurt you.
That kiss was nothing.
I’m used to doing things on my own.
I have to make my own decisions.
I’m not used to having
someone looking out for me.
She looks me in the eyes.
I think about her mom.
I think about my father.
I think that maybe this
could be the end
of our friendship.
Please just forget about that, she says.
I look down.
She walks toward me slowly,
takes my hands.
I’m sorry, she whispers.
You’re looking for something, Ari,
but I don’t think it’s me.
What do you mean? I ask.
She looks me in the eyes, and this time I see her.
It can’t be me you’re looking for, Ari,
because I’m your true friend,
and I
am already
here.
The Kiss
She’s right.
Her words swirl in my gut.
In the movie of this,
I put my arm around her waist
and dip her backward
and kiss her into the sunset.
Instead I say, You’re right.
She laughs. She points to the waves,
to the trees, to the town
sinking slowly into twilight.
We rest in a truth that
only we know,
friendship built
out of difficult circumstances,
chance, something more.
She puts her arms
around her body,
and she looks toward the water.
Lisa laughs and uncrosses her arms.
She walks toward me,
then she touches my hair.
But so we aren’t curious forever …
She moves in closer,
holds my hands at first
then rests them low on her hips,
and her eyes overtake me.
I smell her breath and her soap,
her hair against my cheek.
Her lips are gravity,
and slowly they press to mine, so soft.
I don’t know how long it lasts,
but when it stops, I know she can read my body,
feel it every single way.
She pulls me tighter until I feel so close,
the deep press of something changed forever.
Her hands slide into mine.
Breathe. Smile.
She turns, and we sit in the sand
and silently we watch
the sun go down.
We build a tiny wall
of sand between us,
just high enough
to be friends again.
Then
Did you know, I say,
that there are four places
in England and New Jersey
where fish and frogs rained
down from the sky?
No way! she says.
I draw maps in the sand
to make sure we don’t miss
any detail.
That Part, Right Before Falling Asleep
So tired,
we rest in the twilight
of the planting room.
We try to talk
about everything we can.
I still feel
the crush
on my heart,
but I know it’s changing.
We lay our mats back to back
and stare up at all the drawings.
Tell me more, she says,
about the pond and the elk.
Tell me how you feel
without the book.
Quiet
August has the warmest water,
the biggest waves.
We sit on the sand,
eating ham-and-cheese roll-ups.
I feel something
I haven’t felt before.
Quiet.
It’s quiet in my body.
No wishes
or name-calling
in my mind.
It’s becoming what it’s supposed to be.
As long as I can
remember, it was about
wishing for a different body.
All summer it seemed
to be about
making it disappear,
but I’m done hiding behind lies,
or too much skin,
or trying to be something else.
I pour the summer through my mind.
A breeze is blowing,
everything pond quiet,
redwood strong,
the wind through the trees,
nothing else to lose.
The Revolution Inside
I walk by the pizza place,
smell the melting mozzarella,
the sauce, pepperoni,
and oregano.
For the first time, I don’t
feel the need to rush in
or the fear that I won’t get enough.
I don’t miss the book,
or the rules or levels
or counting almonds
or forgetting the taste
of bread and chips.
The book was a guide,
but I’m not afraid to be without it,
and it feels free.
Like the revolution is inside me,
it’s part of me now.
A new appetite,
a new body, a new mind
that knows more
about how to do the right
things for myself.
Later that night,
we go for dinner,
celebrate our last days of summer.
We order a pizza
with olives and extra cheese.
I don’t cut the crust off,
just happily eat
two of the slices,
and it’s enough.
The Game?
I miss Pick.
I’ll have to email him
in Australia,
tell him the truth
about how I didn’t do much with the game.
But I think he’ll be happy
when I tell him about
all that’s happened.
I think Pick
always believed in
me the most,
even if I do make
him mad sometimes.
I find our stack of folders
for the game near
Pick’s abandoned
sleeping mat.
He is always
more organized
than I am,
makes sure that
things move forward.
I reach into
the top folder,
pull out a blank
sheet of graph paper,
and begin to sketch
something new:
us, on the beach,
tiny stick figures
on the sand,
and far from shore,
many graph-paper squares away,
a giant robot
stands in the ocean,
watching over us,
its massive frame
against the rising sun.
The Bruise Is Gone
At the beach,
Lisa’s hand
moves along the intense
sunburn on my back.
That’s stupid, she says.
Laughs. You get this sunburn now?
It’s true. It’s the first one of the summer.
She lets her hand glide down
at my side, rests it
on the shallowest part
of my love handle.
I can’t see the bruise anymore, she says.
I feel a sudden tingle in my thumb,
the soreness from when
I pinched myself bloody.
The blue-black is all faded now,
the indentation gone,
my skin,
all one color.
She lets her hand rest there
for a while, lets me feel it
until my body stops trembling.
New Beginning
