Regional Security Meeting

REGIONAL SECURITY MEETING

We are at our quarterly security meeting
Talking about how El Salvador is fucked with
Gangs and extorsions and a people so scared that every time I go to pueblo to buy tomatoes they tell me to be careful.

And we are in a nice gated-community beside a pool and then a young girl, 13, 14, climbs out
Wet, her hair and the backs of her legs and her whole body glistening.

Suddenly I am in Lawrence, Kansas again in the community pool with lots of pretty girls in the middle of August, text messages and cheap perfume and ice cream.

Or in Michigan at 7th grade swim team practice, scared and scrawny at 5:30 in the morning, a breakfast of instant oatmeal and OJ.

Or in California with my dad tired and nostalgic

Or in Washington cold and drunk off of plastic bladders of wine, huddling around a campfire with my buddy George.

Now, days later, my twisted mind runs circles. I can´t think of anything besides that girl, the backs of her knees, her bare feet, and how grateful I am for her. Fuck these gangs, hit men. I just need a pool to feel safe, happy, warm. To feel. The goal is to feel again, to feel something besides fear, to get these druggies and crooks off my back. Let them slide. I am wet with the water already.