Stream of consciousness

We bought a hotel in the same town

It didn’t make sense to go far, we had to get to Oakland the next morning

I paid for it out of my defense fund,

Savings kept since childhood, gaining interest

Without a second thought

And we kept the leftover food

Actually the whole goddamn meal, untouched

In the shitty hotel fridge

But I claimed one bed to myself, older-brother style

You two shared the other

Brothers on a hotel bed,

Haven’t we heard that somewhere before?

The words reconfigure

The meanings reflect

I turned the TV on low, no one was watching

We may have been talking

Or may have been silent

Basking in the afterglow of a lifelong argument

I remember thinking, how glad I am

That we can run away now

Like we never could then
We can run away and pretend