My Last Trip
Somewhere there is a voicemail that reveals what it would sound like if I was battery powered and those batteries were running out.
Somewhere there is a panicked text understanding the experience of losing control of me.
trying to focus past the folds of origami reality, high definition
cat fur filling my saucer sized pupils, thick worm fingers dancing
like they’re mating and trying to split in halves.
Somewhen I watched chronology break. Took a spare Saturday, cut it out of a calendar and set it adrift. Boat, the curl of blankets
addicted to hugging me like a returned baby’s mother
whose brain was still full of nightmarish futures,
sea
the storm of perspectives circling my lifetime, shifting meanings, internal
editor, pen clacking against her teeth,
crumpling every reality too cliché to adopt.
Somewhen, a friend heard the pain in my smile and offered me a chance to try out
a case of new eyes,
the view of a stranger, kinder to me than I could ever be.
a reminder,
of the grace
I’ve never dared to share with myself.
Esteban Colon
Esteban Colon is the author of Things I Learned the Hard Way, Whispered Soliloquies, and Hell Creek. The Kenosha Poet Laureate from 2018 - 2019, he serves on the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Committee, and is a member of the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets. His work has appeared in a variety of publications and he has performed all over the Southern Wisconsin and Chicagoland area.
Comments
It's funny isn't it that a stranger can see us with more grace than we sometimes see ourselves. This is an odd and evocative piece that invokes images of someone trying to find themselves in a reflective pool. Thanks Esteban.