Forever mine, forever yours--there’s always a state of transit between us and our breakthroughs, outbreaks, whatever you want to call them, those typical bursts of exquisite time unfolding through the mantelpiece and unimaginable pincushion sadness, tied together with grief and an inordinate number of pineapple chicken beak massacres.

It's not as though we lose our typical digestion when something of this magnitude pops up, but there's no telling the typical dragon-like experience necessary to be taken seriously around here for a change. If there were any kind of scrutiny to be had, scruples to withhold for times when tile melds with rock melds with bedrock melds with molten core, then we'd be in a different boat entirely.

But as it stands, there's not even a raft in play here. Forget about paddles, there's no way we can even keep above the surface long enough to contemplate navigating a body of water. We might be naturally buoyant, but there's no reason to believe that floating like a cork for six hours is a given, even in the gentle salty brine.

Poem originally published to WHARVED.com in February of 2014.

This piece is indicative of my work at that time--lots of grandiose, idealistic language that I now interpret as a young man attempting to sound like an old man. Nearly 10 years later, I'm relieved that I managed to kick around so many thoughts and synthesize them on the page. Revisiting these experiments at a much later date has helped me to unpack my place in the world, both then and now. 

While I have not composed a poem/prose poem for about two years now, I am finding these visitations quite invaluable for my eventual literary revitalization. I just need to give it more time.

BONUS AI ARTWORK:

Here's the prompt I gave to the free AI generator (located at craiyon.com):

"a parsnip salesman distributing his wares in a narrow trench that is surrounded by tall grass and hungry tigers"

Cool beans! Have a great day out there, wherever you happen to be.

-A