from Michigan, but I can see what has changed me. I can’t walk in the woods without anxiety. I say: Where is the 24/7 CVS and the lavender chai latte? I say, I’m so cold. My dad says, You think you’re a big shot now, wants to slap it out of me. Says he’s the adult. Wants to bring me back down to my child level. I remind him he’s getting old. Soon he will be the child. I tell him I will be much kinder to him than he was to me when I was young.
They say the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, but I’m falling as far away as possible. My mother told me I was just like him. I refused to believe her, until I felt the magma rising. Got lots of therapy. Left before I became what she predicted. I know Miami isn’t home, but what is home? I can’t seem to find it. I know it’s not the bottom of a wine glass or a cheating girlfriend. It’s not a cash-rich bank account or high-profile job either.
My yoga teacher says, Be in the moment, but I don’t know how. Don’t you feel time racing? Don’t you see everyone around us dying? I think I’m here to write 33 books, but I’ve only written one. They must be at least 6 pages. That’s my life path number. I ask the Universe to guide me. It tells me I am here to write. It tells me to tune out the noise. A coconut falls like thunder from a palm tree.
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Nicole Tallman is the author of Something Kindred (The Southern Collective Experience Press), and her next two books, FERSACE and POEMS FOR THE PEOPLE, are forthcoming from Redacted Books and The Southern Collective Experience Press, respectively. Find her on Twitter and Instagram @natallman.