“What’s that?”

“It’s gooey!”

“Don’t touch it!”

“I’m gonna touch it with the stick.”

“No!”

“It’s stuck!”

“Drop the stick, drop the stick! Hurry up!”

“It’s on my arm, crawling! Argh!” His friend ran. Leaving behind a gray gelatinous quivering thing.

***

I…I am…

The gelatinous thing changed color. Gray became red, became pink, became flesh tones. Orifices of various sizes opened then formed into eyes, ears mouth and the rest. Consciousness was taken from the boy.

The boy wandered from the woods. His nakedness attracted attention. A mother ushers her children from the backyard as the father walked over with a beach towel; as he placed the towel over the boy’s shoulders, his left hand brushed the boy’s right arm. He was finally noticed by the boy.

“I…” The father tried to separate himself, but the boy’s arm had fused, become one with the father. By the time a scream registered, it was the boy, now a man that was screaming. The father was no more. The creature had progressed and was now headed for the house. The mother had seen everything and was running upstairs for the gun in the closet.

“Get in your bedrooms, now! Lock the door and don’t come out until I get you!” Everyone is running upstairs. Doors slam.

“Honey, stay back. Please, I don’t want to shoot you.” Her eyes were streaming. It was hard to see. She was afraid that she would miss.

“I…”

Out of the mist of a Texas field

A Phoenix did arise

Someone set fire to that precious field

Giving her wings to fly

Amidst the smoke of embers and ashes

She writes for sanity

These social constructions of a woman's body

Make me feel pain in the deepest of my anatomy

My curves are not meant for an objectifying purpose

Nor am I meant for these social constructions

That they are blindly or intentionally a part of

It makes me feel pain in the deepest of my constitution

I want to put my body on the water of the ocean

Let it float at sea and drift away for eternity

As the blue of the sky is the only scenery I see

And water is the only element that can touch me

Blackness. Or is it more of a charcoal gray? Gun metal, perhaps? As I deliberate qualifying the color of darkness, blinking gold swirls appear in my periphery and rotate—going round and round, clockwise, counter-clockwise, faster, fleeting, dancing. I am reminded of Van Gogh’s Starry Night. The harder I concentrate, the more I see. Or think I do. Now the swirls are silvery, twirling, pirouetting more swiftly. Whirlpools. Vortexes. I open my eyes, nauseated. With a headache.

Laugh suddenly,

The whisper of

A radiant secret

Hidden, though

Vibrant

Leads, touching

Our withering

Gladly,

Gliding rainbows

Far off

To shore within

Us, within

You and me.

Fragile heart-shaped leaf

Out on the sidewalk

Took hold of my own

Reminding me to love

Myself and others like me

Although aged in my room

Maintains its form

Crinkled but not torn

Folded but not fading

Because love never dies

No matter how much it's hurt

Loops or strings

Bubbles, vibrations, or portals.

The form doesn’t matter,

so much as the fact.

Our multiverse is infinite,

which means that we are infinite.

We exist in all times and all places.

We can never die.

Does that mean we’ve never lived?

Past, and present, and future are only terms.

Time is an organizational convenience,

not a set fact.

Our reality is relative

and we’re all related.

We are peasants, and worms, and dirt.

We are gods.

We are all things for all time.

We exist for a moment and

for eternity.

May as well enjoy it

as we learn to understand

and control it.