it seems like every time i sit down these days, i write about heat and jungle and desperation. the heat is a presence, physical, stunning. i try to distract my words with overcomplicated emotional issues, but instead i write about the sweat beading behind my knees and the ache of heat in my bones. i write about the sound of howler monkeys and the crickets that seemed to surround us and follow us down from the volcano. i write about the green, green piling on green and so much that i nearly can't stand it, that i stare at the sky just to see blue instead. it seeps into me, turning my flesh liquid and my blood to steam. i write about rain; rain that floods the streets and soaks my pantlegs, rain that pummels tin roofs and comes in through the windows, rain that i watch from a hammock strung between the umbrella leaves of two palms, rain that washes everything clean except the smog. i can't tell if i am melting or floating away, my body both weighted and negated by the heat. i write about twisting mangrove swamps that suddenly open into the sea. i write about the lake in the middle of the volcano in the middle of the island in the middle of the lake in the middle of nicaragua; i write about the thick cool water and seaweed in my hair. it stills me, distills me, so that i am nothing but the beating of my heart and the movement of my breath and the ache of my arms and legs. i stretch, slowly, as a breeze comes through; i have never in my life been so content.


i may be home and happy, but there is some of me still there.