As I sit and watch

I fill

I write

Trying my best to make sense of the avalanche of potential nothings in front of me.

I sit and watch

Taking and never giving.

I build a world grown from stolen moments, overheard whispers, and private glances.

Your world is not your own

As I sit and watch.

If you show up in my favorite place

If you show up in my favorite place, you will swing on the white bench hanging from the ceiling. You'll hear the creaking as the chain catches on the hooks and watch the world go by right beyond the porch but never quite manage to move in time with it. Books will migrate to this front porch every summer. They will come here torn and dogged ear, loved or unread, they will sit and wait. Words will be picked up and carried inside, they will travel to the beach, and in the basket of a bicycle. As the sun falls from the sky and the hum of the otherworld takes over words will float with smoke and dance to the tune. You will count stars and moons and grains of sand. You will feel love and hurt and the exhaustion only the sun can bring. A searing pain of cold will shoot up your hand as you plunge it deep into a cooler of ice and metal. The salty air of the summer that rests on your lips will mix perfectly with the sweetness of your drink. The table will overflow with foods and hands. You will feel calm as the warm breeze wraps around your delicate body, the hum of voices mixed with waves lulling you into a trance.

Place

A square mile of land jutting unassumingly into the Atlantic ocean

Contains my favorite place in the world.

Sitting amongst the rows of houses,

First built in the post-WWII boom,

Is my Grandparents' home.

Unlike the other homes

Neatly lined up with barely a lane between them,

Their home sits alone

At the corner of Mineola Avenue and Beech Street.

A dead-end on one side

And protected dunes on the other.

The house is the physical embodiment of the stoicism the women of my paternal line carry.

Alone amongst the dunes and rocks,

It fits the way one hopes to fit into their own lives,

Easily and comfortably.

The shingles weather as hair grays,

Slowly with the days.

Pounded by salt air.

The reflection of light on the exterior walls shows the ingrained history,

The laughs and tears,

Late nights and endless summers.

The front porch provides a tentative welcome,

Not unkind but protective of the ones inside.

A thresh-hold on which to bare your soul, lay wet towels, take off your shoes.

It is a place I know in my heart.

A place inside of me.