Kyla Houbolt, "to go or stay"

"Walking Scott Street, feeling like a stranger / With an open heart, open container..."

- Phoebe Bridgers, "Scott Street"

Kyla Houbolt wrote "to go or stay" for a recent Small Poem Sunday, and I've found myself pondering her little lyric quite a bit. I started with the question of how different poets treat similar themes. Frost's last lines of "The Road Not Taken" often echo in my head: "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— / I took the one less traveled by, / And that has made all the difference." Frost doesn't know if his choice of path was actually relevant, but he'll claim it was. To be sure, it does seem that in life, we must tell our story to ourselves in ways which aren't entirely honest.

By contrast, Houbolt gives us a "bridge" that has made a "pledge" to us. There's "vicarious precarity / to all who hang / over its edge, / desiring." Instead of a road "less traveled," we are presented a choice which has more to do with people than where they were. Should we "go or stay?" The matter has stakes–there is precarity–and our story can't be fashioned in simply any way.

I am stuck on how desiring creates precarity. How it creates importance, relevance. I recall two people who saw any lover they had as interchangeable. In a way, they were looking for their "road less traveled" story. What mattered was less what they decided, more what they claimed. But it feels like a stretch to say these two lacked desire. That's what I'd like to understand better. When does longing genuinely constitute a need for something more? When does it take us to a bridge and allow for crossing?

to go or stay
Kyla Houbolt

the bridge gives its pledge
of vicarious precarity
to all who hang
over its edge,
desiring.

I've got to imagine those on the bridge who "hang / over its edge." They might be staring for miles, wondering about non-stop numbness. I can't call them selfish, though they'll behave selfishly at times. Self-pity after rejection is perpetually being swallowed by a flood of regrets and wishes. You'll try to do something positive for others–you'll try sublimation–and even that feels a bit forced. Not just your mind but your body wants to revisit what could have gone differently.

I've got to imagine those who've been hit by a deeper sort of loss. It hurts to know there are people you won't speak to again because they've made their choice. It hurts that much more to desire the presence of the departed. To wonder in what other world they reside. There's too much at stake, too much actual precarity. The pain and grief are paralyzing.

It's tough for me to grasp the "vicarious precarity" of the bridge. But we do know people who cross it. Who make a decision to stay or go, who deal with desires. I'm tempted to say that no one really knows how to deal with heartbreak or grief. You just do your best and then a day comes where you hurt a little less in some ways. – You're still pained in others.– That brief window offers you a choice to do different things, perhaps to grieve in different ways. I guess that's when you start moving and the precarity is, in some sense, vicarious. It's not leaving you–it is the literal landmark of a bridge–but there is a monument now that has to be approached on its own terms.

To go back to the questions I started this meditation with, I don't know when exactly longing constitutes a need for something more. I know what it looks like. It isn't doing more to impress or being abnormally proud of tacky romance. It's something like the realization that your partner, or your would-be partner, knows you're capable of more. Recently I've seen a number of couples in that crazy-for-each-other mode, that one in which they only have eyes and quiet gestures for each other and everyone else is tired of their imitation of Precious Moments figurines. I know quite a few people who would term that relation love. For my part, I feel like I've been brought to a bridge, and it is well past time to begin crossing.