bale lane and old faithful

im watching the temperature rise from mid 70s to high 80s and in some other city, sarah is watching the weather channel and telling us, tomorrow will be a good day. my car is full of wood for you, pieces of the house i grew up in, old window sills and door frames, the door we bought to replace the plastic sheet of door covered in wallpaper and calendars covering holes, but it didnt fit and sat in the garage, five, ten, fifteen years. ive got it piled up on a sheet i slept in when i was seven, small flowers, pinks and yellows, sheets that held me and kept me warm when i still made my mama tell me stories, just to get my small heart asleep at night, its back there, my rearview, the length of the 101, and like everything else, its shambles, and splinters and not safe to put your hands on, fragments and paint chips and i want to open the hatch and let it fly across the freeway, i want to watch it hit tires of cars and windshields, fall into fields and hit limbs, bust open foreheads and feel like i feel, like broken pieces of wood, you thought you could make into something much more beautiful and now, now you never will. because you see i did this before i knew, i spent a day in the sun with my dad and walked barefoot and tried to breathe deeper than i ever had, because that smell, that idea that getting out of the city, that the country would "do me good" was fleeting, and i found myself with aching feet and hands raw from digging at the ground, slivers inside and i know, i know, i know my screaming and shouting wont keep you...and the reality is you cant build from what is broken, you must use tools, shiny and new. and thats just not me.
i feel bad for you calistoga, i do. i never give you a chance and every time i just use you for your dusty air and warm nights and curse the streets you made me on. there is a ghost in my bones.once again im pulled over, a car on the highway, crickets and frogs and purple mountains, i wish you could see it, because this place is so deceiving in its beauty and purity and at the end of the night theres never anywhere to go and the streets wont house me like they used to, ive used them all up.
the sun isnt all the way down and its eerily hot, the hood of carissas sweatshirt is too tight, too warm and i cant breathe when you tell me these words, its all just talk, and ive heard it before, you are old faithful and i know just exactly how this will feel, the brimming, the waiting, the boiling under ground, and the release is steady, consistent, and tired. after youve seen it once, theres no need to watch again, the tourists hit the gift shop, collect their kids, buy a t-shirt and drive into town for dinner at the Inn. its predictable, its a science, a timetable, an art, if you will, to the actions, the reactions. and my recovery is predictable, i know how i will drink this one down, away, out and push it all back underground to wait. wait and see how it all turns out, because even though i know what will happen, the exact time, the minute, the moment, i cant. look. away.
grammere tells me, be happy, why do you have such dark circles? are you not drinking enough water? and i smile for her, take her crazy dog on a walk, tell her how great im doing, because i am, i was, i will, i dont know how i got so lost in all this, and when i get ready to leave, i kiss her on the cheek and am brave for her, because the women in my family dont do it any other way, and i just hate to disappoint. the drive is easy, theres never a perfect enough song and my legs stick to the leather seats just like any other summer, only its not summer, and im not brave, im sad and scared and without any streets to drive on anymore. bale lane was untouched by me, and now its all dried up like the fields and leaves, vineyards turned bright gold and burgundy, and going home to clear my head was a wash, i dont know what i was thinking.