I didn’t know that a person can feel like the entire Walter Mitty soundtrack.
Like jumping into the cold icy water and coming up gasping for air, laughing at the impulse you cannot fight.
Like something old and something new at the same time, something borrowed and returned; a ghost with an ancient story sitting on the bookshelf.
Like coming home after midnight when the fog is rolling in and the porch light is on the entire time. I know someone is waiting for me, reading on the living room couch under dimmed light fighting sleepy eyes and worried thoughts.
Have I mentioned being cold? The kind that makes you shaky and you can’t tell if it’s excitement-induced jitters or it’s just your body, surprised by something that has always been there the whole time, unnoticed.
I didn’t know that something can make you forget about everything for a while. I thought smoking did, or being drunk. This is neither but here I am trying to walk straight on my own.
I don’t need synesthesia to know that these songs taste like poached eggs and my words taste like yearning. It’s something a pregnant woman would crave — an odd mix of life and death, enough to excite you and keep you cautious of the tiny fractures. I’m keeping my band-aids around just in case, although there’s not much left of it. Maybe if we combine what’s left of yours with what’s left of mine we will have enough for what’s to come.
I would like to think that we’re on top of the solid ground looking down into the foggy rainforest with bears and bigfoots instead of a volcano waiting to erupt but my shaky knees don’t lie. They swell up when a storm is coming up like an aunt with arthritis and I don’t know if my hands alone can keep this tiny shelter intact. I would love to think that my hands aren’t the only ones holding up the chimneys.
But for now, I have these songs for myself. I’d pretend that you secretly listen to them too and we’re secretly thinking about the same yellow garden light. If you don’t, then let me hold the bee-shaped glass paperweight for a while. Promise I won’t break it.
