Warehouse

This time it’s a warehouse in East Oakland. Between the BART train and the cargo train, there are old tracks as a physical memory of how this place used to turn out steam trains and they run right through my kitchen. This time I knew from the beginning I couldn’t make it work, that seven blocks from the BART at midnight was too many and too deserted for me and my handbag to be walking. I knew that the roads would yield too many flat tires for my bike and found the kitchen’s as dirty as the house I escaped in January. I am filled with tears three nights in a row breaking at the same time, falling into bed with my lover who asks me what is wrong and knows at the same time and a refrain that does not please me, “Is there something I can do for you?”

I want, desperately, I say, to live with Travis and Sunshine and it is light at the end of the tunnel possible and now it is established, we will move at the end of the month. It is a year commitment that I am more than ready to commit to it is a year of settling that I am looking forward to. I want to have a garden where I get to see plants I planted grow.