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Empty Without Me
Video Collage Self-Portrait, 2020
Runtime: 2:57
Featured Poetry
EMPTY WITHOUT ME
Get under here
There’s room for two
And its raining out
Its just us plants, the lawns
The rain, the empty houses
We’ll sit here
Watching the trucks drive by 
One by one
The dark clouds floating overhead
The raindrops hit the leaves
Making hundreds of little sounds 
The drops fall and rest in the grass
There’s that indescribable smell
It’s safe in here

When I slide in, leaves scrape across my face
I step over branches
I twist and contort
And find the perfect little spot
And then I look out onto the yard
And wait and wait
And I watch how it would be
If I weren’t even there
The world is empty without me

Now this is a nice little spot for hiding
Luscious, green, shaded from the Texas sun
You’d sit down and your pants would feel cool and moist

This is less nice but I’d still hide there
The branches are like a briar patch or something haunted
Or like those security bars on windows keeping people out 
It doesn’t look good but it will work just fine

I like pretending in my head that I’m small
That I can make a home
in these big plants and stay there
Its a feeling I’ve had since childhood
Something deep inside me
Impulses firing in my brain 
Saying stay safe
Maybe its millions of years old
Maybe its the animal in me
But maybe its younger
A few decades old
A specific time, a specific place
That I can barely remember
It’s my new living room
And you’re not there
I don’t have to keep it clean
Its made of dirt, soil, earth
Its the freedom of running wild
Its the freedom of not having
To be anything or anyone
Maybe I should save room for the possibility
That its sweeter than all that
What if I wasn’t hiding exactly
What if I was protecting something beautiful
...Someone...
Hiding for decades just above your line of site
Until one day when I could climb right out of that tree
Well, hide if you must little plant
But when you’re ready there’s a whole world 
And it can be full with you
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Empty Without Me
Empty Without Me
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