U=EV/ID.
It is an experimental life. An unrestrained shout down into a dirt floor basement. Mind, mouth, throat, hope. Or the simple brilliance of walking barefoot on the lawn at eventide. Total trust until one windblown thorn pierces the sole.
Each morning, the shutter opens slowly on another round of consciousness. New light on familiar skin. Squeak, sheet, voice, branch. Stretch and effervesce.
Windows can speak in this world. When heat reclines on swollen, moody clouds, the adolescent glass will often demand to be kept unlocked. Eventually admitting entry to spouting, drizzly guests. Thus, casting smears across my emotionally alchemical claims.
(A fake bedside science report copied from the watery scribbles of a rain-stained notebook.)
It’s an experimental life.
Conformists are partial to naps and quiet brooding. Nibbling on soft cheeses, adorned in shawls, kept safe from peril by a wall of throw pillows — forever teetering on the harrowing precipice between scrabble and jigsaw.
The rebels style their hair in public restrooms. Sunglass-ed, fingersnaps. Every subsequent footstep is an angry piece of performance art. They say “let’s split” when the vittles evaporate, when the last call incandescence muscles in. When the prehistoric Van Halen concert lets out, they smash soda pop bottles, shake street signs and silently slow dance in the middle of the street.
To bridge these disparate worlds I close my eyes and travel through time.
Back, back to those days as a make-believe carny. Sweeping up after the zebras, guessing the weight of lost, drunken stepfathers, flirting with the bearded lady, taunting the strong man.
Above me, the unattainable Trans Am beauties. Sashed in the backseat, always bikini-ed and waiting for the parade.
With a reverse lens, the past makes sense. The reasons and reactions. It is now crushingly apparent — bad hair was the culprit of my circus loneliness. The genesis of my risible discontent.
The experiment has me here, clicking at keys to asdf-jkl; my way into the light, to beseech the summer sky for some kind of meaning. The supernatural howl of convoluted compassion, the unpresuming passion for a taste of understanding.
In the middle of infinite outer space, I still believe that we can find one another. Laughing and time traveling together, with our magic hair, lopsided in our acrylic-ruby-studded saddles on a pair of formidable, flying ponies.