Blackbirds linger over the summer of 2012–
I followed them to Austin ahead of winter’s white

knuckle, veered west into the world of tv,
an industry where I found & fought the devil

in myself, his blade lodged still deep within me.
I chose Los Angeles over love, a dead dream

over crisp grass, intoxicated phone calls of
a faraway devotion– how I once told Tony

who I would marry, how it was inevitable
until the two-thousand mile difference

we would never bridge.

(originally published in riverbabble, Summer 2019)