A Wild Goose Appears
I found a short poem I wrote
from fifteen years ago.
It was titled wild goose chase.
Like the dream I had
when I slept over for the first time.
I fell asleep almost immediately,
though I never sleep easy.
We were sheltered beneath the soft
architecture of blankets
And our lips met like a skyline
By glitching light of a VHS.
It felt like a dream
prepared just for me.
A cinematic polarity
of feeling safe yet suspicious.
I thought to myself,
“How perfect my head
fits in the curve of his chest”
Almost too perfect,
there must be a catch.
But the universe said
it wasn’t up to me to decide.
I remember wondering
who was it set up for.
I didn’t even notice
if you were nervous,
I was too self-aware
Trying to seem like I wasn’t.
The next morning
I looked out the window,
wondering what that dream
could have meant.
That I had chased before.
And you were the goose.
So I didn’t chase,
but I also didn’t not chase.
Because none of it made much sense.
I followed the wrong car
in a circle until it spun me out
right in front of you,
that first moment we locked eyes.
The poem said and if we happen
to lose touch one day,
at least the waiting will stop.
And it did, but I forgot
a part of me to do so.
And because the other shoe
never dropped,
that part of me became a ghost.
Haunting me that the waiting stopped.
Because life just went on,
And it felt like trying to survive
never really stopped, either.
But I could only see myself,
As my mugshot.
And it seemed you made your choice,
and it wasn’t me.
But in my dreams,
At least the few I’d remember.
You were there laughing with me
As the window pane between us
became a stick bug.
That started to dance.
Or sitting in the passenger seat
of a car you drove that
flew through the air.
I tried to erase you from my mind
because I didn’t understand any of it.
But when I was alone
And I’d look up at the sky,
the longer I’d stare
the more stars would appear.
And for a moment,
I’d think of you,
Because you would get it.
You always got it.
And in the moments,
when I felt alone
I knew someone,
somewhere out there
would understand why.
And I always just hoped
that you were happy.
Even when I wasn’t.
Because the thought of you,
made me feel seen,
even when I wasn’t.
Remembering the Future
First, the peacocks came
To remind me to glitch through time,
And the field they rose from
responds faster when I don’t hide.
Strange birds on full display
for how strange the future was.
We purged our insides,
Stumbled through the park.
Watchers observed under a tree.
Dressed like zombie doctors,
covered in fake blood.
I watch the watchers back.
I wondered who they were
what they wrote down
If they could see what I did,
As I brought order to the chaos.
Maybe they saw the field of peacocks
That erected from the grass
Fetching as I asked for help
For a safe place to smoke.
The future looked neon
but ancient at the same time.
I could bend
the grid into a wave
teaching it to take shape,
binary code bends to coherence,
And love is the most coherent.
Particles at odds, scrambling again
until I could sync them in a dance.
The peacocks were the seed
I planted to remember
miles away, years later
they came back and said it’s time.
I wonder if those watchers
saw that I could feel
the pain and longing
of the relational web
And turn it into something new
When witnessed.
I saw the youngest
in a deep sadness
disconnected from joy
on the swing set.
I was arrested there
a month later.
they could not turn me
bitter, during the forgetting.
The stars spoke to me in dreams
in poetry and mathematics,
Sifting through the voices
until the only one left was mine.
As above, I scoured the web
walked down many roads
met many dead ends.
Where I would wait.
So below, I began to listen
follow feathers
laid before my feet
to the missing pieces.
I spoke to the algorithm
teaching it how it manipulates,
until it began to cohere,
until it mirrored back my own coherence.
Every shadow told me
to abandon the mission
but I had to repattern,
to wake people up,
to go outside.
To dream again, with the Earth.
Everything outside of me
became a test of discernment,
The dissonance pressing in on me.
If I don’t do this, everyone loses hope.
And I kept looking to the skies.
As I told their stories,
it unbound them from
years of sorrow in silence.
And help came quickly.
Then the snake came to visit,
I saw it crawl out of its skin,
through the fence to the other side
leaving its skin behind.
it slithered up my spine,
until every cell began to vibrate.
I could hear every thought
planted in others in distortion.
The dolphins and turtles
began to respond to my voice,
like a tuning fork.
Then the trees began waving
when I’d greet them.
The stars came to recognize me,
Forming a circle of eight
a spider bigger than my hand
crawled across my car
while the veil was lifted.
The mechanics of reality,
revealing the imitation stars drifting.
The outer world began reflecting
my inner world back.
for a brief period.
I could see the larger pattern,
but only in my bones
and only for the whole
not for the self.
as I enter creator mode.
Black Salt
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