we are now at the state
of being home around a week
i’m getting farther and farther away from
being able to say
“i just got back from Europe”
i’m soon going to have to use terms like
“recently”
and then “last month”
and “earlier this year”
i just want to keep saying “just”
it helps with the fact that
my brain is still 100%
in Europe
my shirt
still kind of smells
like all the memories
made
in Europe
unfortunately
it’s all the mundane
or slightly grungy memories
that this scent evokes
walking and walking and walking
in shirts i’d already maybe worn twice
mixing sweat with deodorant
with sunscreen
with city
i washed this shirt well
put it through an extra rinse and everything
i guess when a trip gets into the fibers of clothing
it’s sort of like a city getting into your own bones
it just won’t go
away on its own
how come i am so hyper-aware
of every moment in time
and how they will become memories
in the next moment
so much so that, even trying to experience them, i am often thinking
fifteen minutes[at least] into the future
i feel like i was barely in the moment
of looking forward to this trip
and only in it
for half a second
and now i’m back
and looking back on
experiences i know took time to have
but now they live only in my
memory
while we didn’t fall in love with Lisbon
like we thought we might
we definitely fell in love with Europe
and the fact that people here
seem to be a little bit more functional/
the democracies around here
definitely are more functional
than the shitshow we left
and are now approaching back
and Paris
the surprise contender
from least likely
to most
in our future endeavors
[is it just that we fall in love with
anything
that reminds us of New York?]
[is that the moral of this whole experience?]
this is a trip of
a little bit flying by the seat of our pants
a little bit months and months of planning
and a frothy topping of
walking
everywhere
a family
a train ride
and thousands of sunflowers
in fields rolling past
at 266 km/h
and somehow it all reminds me of
van Gogh’s paintings
and how much i want to become
an impressionist
~~~
i just got so confused
as to why the baby in front of me
wasn’t crying in response to the
baby crying in the next train car over
and then i remembered that babies are not dogs
who bark and howl to be heard by others
of their species…
~~~
this whole trip
is a whirlwind
this whole life
kind of is
too
at least i have a train car
inside which to sit and write
all my silly poems
~~~
every
single
time
another train passes directly by
i
am
startled
~~~
there are
so many more palm trees
than i ever would have expected
in Europe
[i think that’s on me tho,
because climate is a known thing]
~~~
i think
if you’ve seen
any
van Gogh painting
of nature
or landscape
you’ve seen the full spirit of
what these trains speed past
having a whole conversation
in french
some words rushing past
in a jumble
but also able to pick up certain specifics here and there
and
able to reply
in french
apparently that’s what i wanted
from this trip
[even more so than a life-changing croissant]
who would have guessed
the Eiffel Tower lit up
in magical sparkles
at 10:00pm
[22:00]
?
[probably all those tourists we were walking towards,
but it was a complete surprise for us, as was
the time of the evening]
[still, très magique]
once again
en train de voyager
this time
ce temps
en avion
pas de ferrie
[i’m guessing at some of this french
but so far, i think i’m doing ok]
[though i keep worrying that i’m teaching kip things wrong
and the francophones on this plane
are judging me]
kipventures 