the_romantic kerry they worry about me but i worry about you, so tender, like a snail without its shell. only a year and a half separates us, so many of our firsts coincided, but it often seems we could have been raised in different households, could have had different parents. i didn’t understand you so i made you my enemy, too young to see the middle gray--that acceptance can be just as important as understanding. i flew away and you stayed put. for a little while we talked on the phone all the time. i even urged you to move out west, build that geodesic dome, i told you i couldn’t stand to see you broken-hearted. you were still floundering then, you said i hear you (but don’t tell me what to do) you called me scared one evening, said dad was spiraling, that nothing was right, nothing made sense you were scared of this problem none of us can solve you love too hard, you seem to think your devotion could turn a sour heart sweet we swapped places and i became the one making the calls, adrift, flailing, desperate your voice is the same every time you answer the phone, like bells chiming i hope you’ve kept my secrets (don’t tell mom. swear? don’t tell mom. i mean it.) but when i ask for help you suggest smoothies and philosophy, you mail me a copy of the bhagavad gita when danny died i called you i was walking on dickinson that godawful street hideous and treeless, i was fine until i heard your voice soft as feathers and it unlocked something and then i was sobbing where are you? you asked. i’m just walking, i can’t sit still, i can’t be anywhere. i’m so sorry. i knew it would happen this way but i don’t know why i’m this upset. of course you do, and i do. just talk to me, about anything, just talk. you told me how yesterday you ate an eighth of mushrooms, the ones you grow in a tupperware bin in your condo, i’ve written about this before jesus christ, i said. you ate them all and then vomited into a stock pot and laid on your bed for the entire day tripping and thinking about how much you love everyone and all the things you wish you could tell them. see what i mean? 211111 ... tender_square “stu, your daughter’s on the phone.” i heard dad call brightly from the background, “you mean the fatso pickerhead?” (don’t ask me where the nickname originated, i’ve had it for forever.) “hi, daaaad!” it was good to hear his voice. “how are things over there?” “oh, you know,” he began, “the neighbors are all jealous of the young couple that lives here—they can’t get over how in love they are.” i could hear his smile as he said this. mom gave a girlish laugh on speakerphone and i pictured her cheeks blushing in the afternoon light. 211205 ... tender_square "the romance of addiction can take us deep into our primal longing, deep into the unconscious desires that conventional society would have us repress. but there in that deep night we experience—alone with the depths of our unconscious feelings—the primal energies of creation, the urge for ecstasy that takes us beyond the ordinary and familiar world we often take for granted as the only reality. thus, the restlessness and longing of the Romantic, if genuinely understood, is like the mystic's quest to be aflame with the fire of divine love. if the Romantic can endure this fire and bring the mystical vision back to earth by embodying it in creative life, then the addictive quality of romance can be transformed into a creative gift." —linda schierse leonard, "witness to the fire: creativity and the veil of addiction" 230425 what's it to you? who go blather from