I swear, I’m not obsessed with death, why would I avoid it it at every rooftop I visit? Nothingness is the freakiest thought I can think of, but there’s gotta be nothing to be something, right? The in-between. The large glass of orange juice, not from concentrate, that’s why they had me on all those ADD meds, I’m a pure gemini. Do you want grounded me? As in ankles submerged in the dirt, growing roots out of my toes me. Or do you want strapped to a parachute in a tornado me? Electrons not knowing or caring which space to occupy me. They taught it all wrong in the classroom me. It’s okay if you want none of them, or all of the above, it doesn’t change which snack drops from the vending machine. And then I’m all like “Walt Whitman says he contains multitudes”. What’s up with me and dead gay American poets? I guess the heart wants what the heart wants. Where does my empathy go when it hides away? When I ask and all the spectators of the soul say “I dunno, never heard of the guy?” If gaslighting one’s own self was a sport, I’m the olympian with no country. I can’t say that I’ve never started a sentence and not known where it would take me. What fun is knowing if the pen has no care for your story anyway? That’s why I like improvising, in music each note informs the next. No one taught us how to breath, to walk, to smile… it’s all improv. We were all caught on candid camera, unprepared and unexpected! We are lost in the supermarket and our only job was to grab the milk. “Cleanup on aisle 12”. 1, 2, 3, 4. . . 12 can’t be far. Maybe they can help me there, I can talk to strangers. You are not my mother. All I’m saying is that it’s okay that we’re all “failing” all the time. Momma didn’t raise no robot. We all know the clichés about failure. Something about Michael Jordan’s high school team, Javier Kaminsky sailing for the first time at 42. If we got paid to fail I’d be rich, living in a lofty jungle mansion in Peru with a guest house full of parrots and citrus. I get paid in other ways, in experience and memory and trauma and joy. The parrot room would be nice but it’s okay for things to only exist in my mind too. There is enough room in there, and then it’ll be forgotten and replaced with the next fantasy. Here I am, outside, sun hitting my chest, one dog in front, one dog at my side. The warmth of the sun against my chest reminds me of being on Gabe’s roof, shirtless, careless and free and untangled. “I am still that person” – I whisper to myself, hopefully convincingly enough.
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