A year ago, studying for the bar exam
Now I swim out in the deep end
Which once seemed so far
Out of sight and out of reach of toe tip
I embrace the scent of chlorine in my hair
And the feel of water in my eyes
Smiling untethered with memories of each
kick and push it took to get here
In welcoming this June, I welcome the unknown
I woke up that night
and reached for my journal
just a few words, jotted down in
half-sleeping-half-waking
hardly even able to grasp the pen
in those too-dark hours only known by lovers
and those with small bladders
my wish for life
“I don’t want to be famous
I just want to sit under the stars,
with a cat on my lap,
and my mortgage paid.”
One yellow light and a million cars
is all that stands in the way of my getting to work on time.
In the great wait of turning,
in all of the gaps between incoming traffic too small for me to fit through
I think about something dumb that I read once in a comic book
(or maybe watched in a cartoon a long time ago),
something about alternate timelines existing at the molecular level.
And I think about what universe lives in the molecules of that yellow light
which might as well be red.
I envision pirates being carried in great pirate ships
pulled by camels across a long yellow stretch of sand
to plunder and kill anyone who might be travelling alone.
And who might be traveling alone?
Delivery people probably,
slaves of the evil Quardabarth Corporation,
forced to carry out shipments of fidget spinners and fidget cubes
lest their spouses and children be fed to Withhlebob,
the great spouse and child eater.
And in the cities
(safe from the plunder of pirates on ships pulled by camels)
the Quardabarth Corp sends its agents to kill and sabotage their competitors
and someone’s brother or son dies defending Quardabarth from theirs.
Big men in big robotic suits die defending the great yellow dessert from invading aliens,
red ones from the north and green ones from the south,
beings whose survival can only mean the total annihilation of the other two
(or so they all believe).
Little robots in little men suits sit in bunkers
writing propaganda for the war and for Quardabarth
and for anyone else with money in the pot
(a literal pot that dances and bites).
All of this happens for minutes and an eternity
until the man with his hand on the lever thinks–
that’s enough
and shuts it all off.
And the pirates, and the camels, and the salespeople,
their spouses, children, the one who ate them, and the ones that owned him,
those who died on all sides, and their fathers, and their brothers,
and even the propaganda writing robots
will all be lost to the darkness and the abyss
for minutes and an eternity
until it all starts up again.
And if I don’t make this left turn soon
I’m going to be late for work.
Memory like a steel trap,
like jolting with a camera flash.
I see real life angels, I am
feeling the fluttering and then
He says “Listen to sound of
their wings slapping”
I think birds, I think angels,
I think demons, father, daughter.
Dance and twist, pretzel
Knots and gnats, not
A loose interpretation, lose
The key, stuck in a lock
Til the key lime pie unlocks.
It’s tit for tat, the tater tots
Fly in oil, jumping and coiling
This nonsensical kangaroo
Free-ranged from the zoo
Of words you knew.
A multitude of marvelous manifestations of my musings
Flit around my mind as if the sun was cycling
across my kaleidoscope eye
Unfortunately the florescent fixtures in my dwelling fail to facilitate my fantasies
The paints in front of me are crusted over and my brushes crunch
A canvas and glue and wood and screws
Require a trip to the store
And money I don’t have
Suddenly my motivation is gone
The ideations of my imagination remain inconceivably intangible
To me, it seems my creativity is impassive
where I wish it were insatiable
At last, the sun shines upon us
and the mud is washed away.
For it was a long time since I’d
last seen my lover, a true knight.
Words spoken in whispers over
the phone of everlasting love.
Would it still hold true when the
daylight came back to us?
For I knew a verison of him that
was only seen by me. Passionate.
And he drew feelings out of me
that I did not know could exist.
I never believed one could look
into the eyes of another that way.
The way old couples said that their
lover was the most beautiful of all.
I thought it was a lie. How could an
ordinary person be the most beautiful?
Truth be told, how could I be the most
beautiful to someone with my flaws?
And I was not convinced until I first
met eyes with my lover. It was magic.
I understand now how you can see
the entire world in another’s eyes.
The feeling is like no other. It was
undeniable to me that he was mine.
And in turn, I was his. And somehow
all the missing puzzles pieces were found.
Fireworks exploded in my mind and
I knew that my lover was home at last.
