Day 679 May 12, 2022

Things I Have Lost

A boom box circa 1985 at a party outside by Cat Rock. A yellow Schwinn that was returned to me broken. A nickname that was smoking related. A nickname that was temperament related. A nickname that never really fit. My first nice guitar. A leather jacket with an ink stain on one breast. A first love because all I would do is hug. A car with 300,000 miles and no passenger seat. A second childhood. My mother’s tongue. All the lines of poetry I memorized. A freestyle wrestling tournament. A white jazz bass. The key to the roof carrier. The leather bound Shakespeare plays. Ms. Busse’s Faulkner novels. The ability to drink more than one glass of alcohol. The words to most Grateful Dead songs. Several lovers, a spouse. Two dogs in particular. A fantastic house. Most of my old band t-shirts. A skateboard. Countless kites strung up in trees, or flung into the horizon. Four dreams, each more and more ephemeral and nearly forgotten with each waking day. A chicken that vanished leaving only a few tufts of feathers. A leaky sailboat. A camera lens that was perfect in nearly every way. A nearly complete draft of a thesis. Everything stored on four defunct external hard drives. A pair of Adirondack chairs. One particularly nasty habit. Any desire for flapjacks. Most of my lactose tolerance. The dwelling in anger… mostly. A set of plates and bowls. The ability to sleep in, most days. The sensation that in every airport there was probably at least one person there that I knew.  A red blinking light that strapped to the back of my seat post.

Somewhere over Nashville.