Oh yes, I’m up.
Up from the party. Up from the other party. Up from studying. Up from dance. Up from worry. Up from night, when he who is tallest gestured and I followed around the old building, up the fire escape, four stories, stairs, red heels, up the other fire escape, which twisted around the turn of the siding, and then he was gone from sight, gone from the ladder, and then he was back (he waited higher), and then there were stars.
Pause for the stars.
Up from climbing in through the window, across the boards they had laid on the radiators for just such an entrance, into the bright hallway of the inn, into a room where clear glasses of liquid lined the dresser like someone would start playing their wet rims, which, I don’t know, maybe they will. Sitting on a bed as if it were a chair. I have not done something like since this since school. I have often gone through my life feeling like I am in trouble. I am up from trouble. Up from Sunday. Up from sleep which was not sleep. Up from rose-spotted pajamas. Up from poetry. Up from lies. Up from a cup. Up from the water, which was cold and black and dissolved the low parts of my body like sugar in coffee, and today I am going back in.
