Do you remember how it was to be whole?
I remember it like the thin, unaffected air
of spring, personal,
that traces over ribs like a dripping frost.
I remember it like the blushing anticipation
in the moment before that first,
most immature kiss.
Or like waking up alone
before you realize that you fell asleep.
Age is this tragic exchange:
potential for opportunity,
security for identity,
belonging for autonomy.
I imagine myself a ball on a roulette wheel
and wonder why I should care about my number
after I stop.
Today, the twirl is dizzying and
I inhale the disorientation,
but some days,
gratitude that I can catch the warmth
in the long desert of my skin
is not enough; nothing matters.
Those days, I dream of jumping ship
to backstroke, trading this earthquake mind
for a heart like cotton pajamas.
The closest I can come to
regression into my childhood
is indulgence in my fantasy,
neglecting reality’s shower curtain
and letting the suds of
bathwater spill onto the floor
until I melt into them.
I can’t tell where the universe ends and I start.
Maybe the world is an organism
and we are scampering its circulation.
Maybe we touch so that when we’re alone
we don’t forget what it feels like to
be part of something more complex than we are.
Maybe we’re all broken,
malfunctioning, missing pieces,
unprotected, unsafe, discontent,
sabotaged, emotional, hurt, burdened,
haunted, misinformed, or just plain weird;
but we are all one being. There is
no distinction between the atoms around us
and the atoms of us.
When we change, everything changes,
that configuration of the universe is lost.
So handcuff it to the bedpost of your recollection.
Tattoo it across the forehead of your character.
If you don’t, no one will.
Do you remember how it was
to have something you could look forward to?
The only things I remember are
the sound of expectation crumbling
like a handful of bone fragments
and the smell of contamination
from the water in the tub
before the humidity forced
the fiberglass to crack.
Which parts of our Potato Head personalities
did we exchange to be ourselves?
Didn’t you want to be an astronaut?
What happened?
Why did you stop going to your ballet lessons?
You were the best in the class.
When did we trade our potential for opportunity?
Why did we give up our aspirations for addictions?
What uninspired vessels are these adult bodies
that we have been commissioned to pilot?
Every day I have a staring contest with a different person
through the window above the sink:
more creases in the furrow of his brow,
shoulders held higher, muscles a little tighter.
He recognizes me only as the manifest of
the rolling tidal wave of his fate,
preparing to him return home.
We are all standing between two bookends of nonexistence,
and every day they pull closer together.
And the claustrophobic reality is
there is nothing
we can do to stop it.
glassEyeballs
