It all started in the piggy den

In the membrane of the new one

I woke from a trickle of slime

The new feeling comes again

In short, I wasn't surprised

My tummy ravished by the land

The King had pulled his gifts

And with them, a dilapidated homonculus

From a flower, a dorset, and a markinshire

Countless, unabashed

Flailing as new ones do

But its serene eyes smile

Smile from the reflection of my blade

I must do as the King orders

And frame them as a painter, his paintings

They are nothing but colors on a canvas to him

Dust and ash if I do not

The pressure and consequences otherworldly

To a man like me, it is duty

To a man like you, it is unjust and undeserved

Far from where you stand, my blade draws near

Lifeless as myself, borne witness to better

And again, through the reflection

I see the smile in the eyes of a man I don't recognize

From a flower, a dorset, and a markinshire

My pain is only temporary,

But consequence everlasting

The roaring of a new world as my blade tears through a naïve heart

So to explain,

I am real estate agent, Ron at Gulag

I’d hate to be him.

He doesn’t seem to grow anymore

And it’s just because he can’t admit

That he could be wrong

Sure it’s useful if you’re well informed

But certainty is dangerous

Certainty is tight and thin

Even those familial bonds

Split easily

Under the force of that certain edge

I even cut him off last year

Because it seemed

I’d never be able to reach him

Or open him up to the possibility

Of his own error

But I let him back in

When I came home for break

And after a recent fight

He did something strange

He said sorry

And I’m surprised to say

I’m proud of him

I stepped on a swing and it swung me away.

At some point, in the middle of an eternal momentum, there was a ripple in time that graced my face. Wind turned to fabric and the night to day.

My second foot swayed forward until it met with peach-tinted water hanging far above my world at a 90 degree angle. It was beautiful, like a flower that melted into a transparent ocean. It held my foot in place as I held the swing’s chain, like the magnet of mercury or the muck of mud - beautiful, glassy, fluttering mud.

A giraffe’s head surfaced from the water. It wore water goggles. Its neck was surfacing too, higher and higher, it grew, until up came its back and a spikey-haired boy that sat on it. He, too, wore goggles.

“You’re a long ways from home.” ...said the giraffe. His head craning down beside me. “You were unwise to visit this place.”

And like that, his warning became a sentence to my fate, for the boy on his back took that moment to jump out of the flower-water, off of the giraffe's back, and on to the swing. In one fluid motion, he slipped my foot off the seat with his, and pried my hand off the chain with his. As he started to fall away, he whispered a faint "Gracias" with a pained expression on his face. He lifted his arm and a long patterned sleeve that wasn't there before flung up towards my face, from this came a pomegranate that I juggled to catch. Every fumble sent this water-glazed world at a different angle, as if the pomegranate was the centre of the universe and we were rotating around it.

When I last caught it, this world was upside down and I was viewing the final sillhouette of the boy who stole my swing as he fell through the clouds. I hugged the pomegranate to my heart and for some reason I began to cry. My tears caused the ocean I was attached to fall out of the sky and rain down on my old world. I watched, completely drenched, as the ocean and all its talking zoo-animals, fell away from me, without me. All that was left for company was this pomegranate...

...and it didn't come with an instructions manual.

And to you he gives a key

No, he did not say what it’s for

He mentioned that you’ll find out soon enough

Apparently, this key will be of more value to you than anyone else

More important to him than anything else in his will

The key is rusted green

The keys teeth are worn and so oxidized that they seem useless

A memory of him catches your selfish thought midair-

He always meant well.

Maybe this opens a small box in the basement, a fortune worth more than his house

Or maybe not

You think about how much he did in his life.

You think that the key is not a tool to fill your bank account

The key is meant to remind you of how you should live.

You walk upstairs to your room holding it

On step 4 you fall and bust your lip

You look down as the key falls and lands next to the staircase

Your mother yells from the dining room, “You alright?”

“Yeah, fine.”

As you approach the key you notice a small box on the table next to the stairs

It looks just as old

But nope, it does not fit.

Maybe it’s the rust or maybe it’s just the wrong lock

Or maybe, uh oh

Your selfishness tears through any meta-thought you try to muster in that moment

“All I got was this god damn key” you mutter

Back up to your room now

You sit in bed staring at the key

You miss dinner

You miss your grandfather

You miss the point of the key, again

Stop being selfish you think

But Tina got the house

Mom got his car

Theresa got about 10 paintings

This one pissed you off

All the youthful days you spent with him coloring and connecting over art

And you didn’t get any of them

They’ll sell those or forget what they owned

His material ghost sits in your hand and you pout over the paintings

After a deep defeated breath, you go downstairs to feed off some scraps of supper

Mom gets a call from Theresa

She tried opening Papa’s painting studio

It was locked.

We were happy swimming

But then we stumbled upon a steep sandy ledge that led to a beach

I climbed up and pulled you with me

We laid in what I thought was loving embrace for a few seconds

We took off each others clothes

This felt like a perfect time to be intimate

So, I made love to you

You fucked me

You said it felt wrong and to go slower

I tried making everything go slower

But you complained again

You told me that I hurt you

Out from your clothes you pulled a small device, a series about 6 bending tubes all connected by little metal modules

The spaces between each tube glowed different colors

You pointed the device up

I looked up

A star map appeared

I looked at you fearfully

You had disappeared

I quickly pulled out my device

There were too many tubes-

Too many colors-

I projected my star map up...

It was too complicated

Nebulas everywhere, cosmic collisions, celestial bodies I couldn’t make sense of

I laid there in defeat

But I began to appreciate what was projected above me

It was beyond you, you were gone

My universe was there and it was beautiful

I twisted the device in my hands

The stars moved with it.

You got stinky finger tibs

Why couldn’t you pronounce it right

Well that’s because I put them where my caca comes from

Your eyes widened

Yes. Where the caca comes from.