black and white – Page 2 – Bernal Heights Journal

After Love

You remember how bad it was.
You remember how good.

You saw her whole
the damage, the beauty,
the talent that made you stay.

No one hurt you like that.
No one was loved like that.

You tried to remain—
not by effort alone,
not in a bond
that never met you.

It still aches
that the talking stopped.
You know you can’t move forward
while holding what has already ended.

Otherwise you become
the thing you won’t keep
and won’t discard.

You pass IKEA.
You see the jam she loved.

And still,
there is someone in the world
you loved enough
to know what jam she loved.

They were alike
in their thirst for knowledge,
she reflected—

not academics,
not intellectuals,
but self-taught
with the urgency
of working-class people
who never had culture
handed to them.

If only, she wished,
she might take up something
quiet and peaceful—

beekeeping,
or stamp collecting.

Sometimes when everything feels stuck just a small movement is enough.

Small Town Films

Where nothing happens, and it changes everything.
The middle of nowhere, center of my life.
Small town, long memory.

We stayed because the light did.
Gas station neon holding back the dark,
streetlights doing their best with what’s left.
One stoplight and a thousand almosts.

Everyone knows your name, not your story.
Quiet houses, loud memories.
We grew up circling the same four blocks;
the streets remember who we tried to be.

This is what forever looked like when we were kids,
practicing leaving on roads that looped back.
Every back road a half-finished sentence,
the sign always saying NOW LEAVING
the place you never really leave.

There’s always one porch light on, just in case.
Population: anyone still believing in second chances.
The wind knows every empty lot by name,
one barking dog guarding the whole universe.

We outgrew the town, not the ache.
Long roads, short futures, soft hearts.
A slow town, never a still heart.