Special Occasion

These past few weeks I have very much been leaning into/re-exploring my “poet” identity that I think has always been a big part of me, just dormant for a long time.

I feel like it is changing my brain. I am feeling things I haven’t felt in a long time. Accessing emotions and all that good stuff. We’ve replaced your regular Katy with a new Katy that’s a little sparklier!

I write everything in first person but that doesn’t mean it’s always about me, specifically. I mean, usually it is, or it’s at least a version of me… but not always.

I don’t like to specify, either. Perhaps it makes me seem more mysterious. In this piece, was I the special occasion, or was it someone else entirely?

Special Occasion

Katy Scott
2025

Sunburned shoulders, reddened lips, tangled hair.
You turn off the engine
We collapse onto the bed amidst a smoky ocean of paper maps.

Pink-orange sunset leaks in drops around the edges of the blinds
Dripping onto the glazed Spanish tile.

My hand drifts off the side of the bed, grazes the cool tiles
And the sensation grounds me, a little, in the moment
So I can ignore, for the moment, what is coming.

You reach across me to the bedside table, leaning into me
You’re still radiating the desert heat but it’s more than that.
You smell of sweat and soap and dust and the sun
And I don’t want this to ever end.

And I should not feel lonely, but I do:
This is a fixed moment in time where there is no path forward.

And since I can see the future,
I simply accept the ice cold root beer you hand me
Because it is enough that in this moment,
I am your special occasion.