there was a time when i thought of death everyday. i dreamed of being engulfed into the dark energy of some abyss. i ate the idea up and hid it in the pit of my stomach and every morning before school, i would pick up the fragments of this carefully composed pottery and hope one of its slivers pricked the tips of my fingers.
i didn't ask to see much of the world. at noon, i examined the chipped pieces of curb paint by the sidewalk in front of my house. at 5 o'clock, i'd ponder at just how beautiful my tree swing looked in the sunset, but never thought much, fearing that if i looked at it long enough, it would be so beautiful i might explode.
i've learned to feel a sense of completeness since then, especially when the sun sets here at school and entrances the grass and the steeples with its pool of young amber. or when i have a good conversation or when i cradle a loaf of bread under my arm. i've toweled off the morning fog and gained a greater picture of seeing. but i still don't feel whole- whole like the energy that fuses the delicate egg with a first sperm. maybe that wholeness is supposed to occur just once, just there. then our body turns positions and starts to lose battles and wars, giving and giving and ending with wiry, gray hair and saggy, translucent skin.
my legs map every nick and scrap of every childhood fall, foreshadowing the deplorable conditions of age. then i look at you with your fast walk and clear eye and incorrigible expression and i lose my breath, and cannot compare at all.
