EXPERIMENTS

Time 1

Sixty minutes.
That’s how long it takes to fall in love.
To notice your pale eyes, the inconsistency in your pattern,
that momentary flicker in this quiet composure you wear so well.

I see them, inked black on your arm a series of bars and I wonder.
Are these just lines or markers of time,
tallying thoughts of a story once close to your heart.

I hear you, when you ask for a pen.
Perhaps you’ll leave me a note and I imagine how you write,
if the words about to pour will form the colour of our sky.

But who am I kidding?
I’ve done nothing but pretend to read this catalogue
of safety since you first arrived.

And now that the plane has landed off you go.
Never to realise that I’ve kept you.

Even if only in the back of my mind.

___

“How to Fall in Love in 60 Minutes”
-3/31/22, Alaska Airlines, Somewhere over the Pacific

Time 2

Two weeks. That’s how long it takes to get back at times.

It starts with small shifts. The mood darkens, your heart becomes twice it’s weight. The best way to describe it is as sleep paralysis. A part of you knows it’s illusory but the mind lacks control. Next thing you know you’re pulled into slow motion.

Time has a different texture here. Hours go by staring at the ceiling or counting cracks. You find yourself catching dust motes for as long as the light doesn’t shift.

Isolation makes it easier. It gives you time to push through misplaced thoughts and feelings and tuck them in neat little packages that tear at the seams. You tell yourself you’ll handle them next round. Just like you’ll handle those calls unanswered. Maybe you’ll lie, keep things comfortable.

Next, there’s intermittent crying. There’s always intermittent crying. But it’s distracting. The eyes get puffy the sinuses go whack. The walk from bed to grab a wad of toilet paper feels difficult, keeping you irritated enough to stop the sobbing.

Then there are sounds. Focusing on them helps. Muffled conversations, footsteps from apartment above. Wind chimes on a static afternoon are pretty.

When everything melts you grab your phone and get sucked into quotes by strangers. Pretty ones by Scott Fitzgerald mixed with shitty ones by Aubrey Drake Graham. But words feel like sunlight, like the kind of warmth you don’t realize you’ve been deprived of until it hits you. You read until they don’t make sense.

But mostly you just sleep. A little trick to fast forward time. Later you’ll notice shades of sky or flowers in concrete. You’ll sign up for a dance lesson even take a trip to watch the fireflies. You’ll meet strangers and turn them into friends, laughing with them the manic laughter of a carefree teen. Till then you’ll sleep. You’ll sleep to make sure these plans don’t fade. Like a fleeting daydream.

____

“Dark”
-4/30/21, 4 am