Meet Me Here Nine Months Ago

Waking to noon dawning,

to a strange room

and a bed familiar

of a predominately Mexican and Hipster populated neighborhood,

hint of Puerto Rican a few blocks south,

of a mattress cover swelled

with the humid scent

of handmade tamales warming

on a push cart - 50 cents at the corner.

-

The lady who lives on the first floor sells umbrellas

from her push cart.

I saw her once,

I see the rats more,

check the toilet before sitting each time,

reminiscing horror stories from home –

they climb the pipes.

Dad sent a box of Recon

in a cardboard box, wrapped in plastic shopping bags,

next to Grandma’s hand knitted potholders

and the Episcopal Church charity cook book.

I plan for egg bake

when the heat returns my hunger.

Sheets soaked with night sweats-

even the rain can’t cool this city down-

keep the box fan for the noise,

still here the El pass

every fifteen minutes,

reach out and touch it,

faces materialize for each second split -

bored, sleeping, indifferent-

and still, my roommate

who hates Whites and Hipsters,

but still wants to bone me,

makes love behind our shared bedroom wall.

Groggy and eyes crusted, mouth dry,

mistake the construction on I-29

for the Blue Line

somewhere in the conservative corner

of the southern-most Dakota.

I make mention of The City

with every breath

so these natives don’t mistake

my move

as permanent,

as a state of emergency,

or a homesick country girl

who failed

to navigate

skyscrapers and lake-side winds,

liberals and atheists,

missed the smell of cow shit,

missed comfortable.

-

I welcome uncomfortable,

and gunshots

the opposite side of Fullerton,

and hobo street fights,

gentrification

and high-rises.

This Midwest-content

never found a home in me.

Who has a free

shotgun, backseat, truck bed

to take me 600 miles south,

and a little bit east?