This begins with a question<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How to thread a handful of years<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Through a thousand words<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And at first, I went for that<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sunset over Palmer Field<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over the classes where I learned about<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bioluminescence and serpent hoards<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And what to do when a screw\u2019s<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let loose through the fan of your laptop<\/p>\n\n\n\n
(Which is mostly panic, by the way)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But I couldn\u2019t quite catch the wisps of<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Orange giving way to the night<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So down I walked past<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Two theatres, tonight with no moon,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Halls formed from paper monsters<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From which celebration echoes<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A courtyard of black-feather leaves<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Where first this all began<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Where I found a world of<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Strange music and a good few<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kind words of encouragement to<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Try this all out in the first place<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And I kept on going<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stumbling upon the<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pothole pock-marked path<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Taken in a parade of maize and blue<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trying to keep the cold at bay<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I ended up before the stadium<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A family necessity when our weekend came<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Where I realized that the screams of a crowd<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Are quite contagious<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And I smile with the static<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Still singing in my ears<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But this isn\u2019t quite it<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So I wander a little more<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the sky darkens in<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The sweet scent of shadowy lilacs<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As I turn my attention upward<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And there it is<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How do I write a goodbye?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How could it hold<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Every last thank you for the<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Laughter I was let into?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I think of every<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Walk with a friend spent trying to<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rot each other\u2019s brains when<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They became too full of phantoms<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Every evening spent shouting at dice<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Made of benevolent stones and troll skulls<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With the friendliest chaos one can conjure together<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Every post-it note needed to make a<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Smile that stood in a window for a semester<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And maybe one more that stays a little longer<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Every mask I carefully made<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As I joined in the revelries of<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The one night each year I start to come back<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From the ghost I can make of myself<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Every strum and song and<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wild of words hustling towards happier trails<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Every moment before the lights dimmed<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And showed their rising beams of dust<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because each scene was built beforehand<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And sung of afterward, the words a flash<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Across a screen we all crowded around<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Scenes made of plastic trees and hot glue gun thyrsi<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pinprick green constellations and roses, real and parchment<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And all the days spent<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Going from forests to films<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To markets to midnight vaults<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To arcades and on across Ann Arbor<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Always with those I will be<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Grateful to call my friends<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All of that<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How does goodbye hold all of that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Well, it doesn\u2019t<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So instead, I\u2019ll thread a hopeful \u201csee you later\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Through the thousand words above<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And look to the streetlight<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That we\u2019ll pretend is a sunrise for now<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because no matter what<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For all those memories and people<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That a goodbye could never hold<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m under the same stars as you<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This begins with a question How to thread a handful of years Through a thousand words And at first, I went for that Sunset over Palmer Field Over the classes where I learned about Bioluminescence and serpent hoards And what to do when a screw\u2019s Let loose through the fan of your laptop (Which is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2270,"featured_media":25683,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[776,1036,533,281,15,1988,420],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25682"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2270"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25682"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25682\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25685,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25682\/revisions\/25685"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}