Threshold (Poem)

Not often can you take a look around

to see your life laid level before you,

the vast grey fields of the future

cone-like and possibilitied

after the straight-sepia 

skidmarks of the past.

When this happens, 

wary travelers should take note

of the color of the sky

of the color of the present

of the contours of the air

shaping the moments leading

up to this point,

you had no stake in your story.

What lays before you now

is the echoing of after-effects

rattling around in your brain

like half-forgotten leftovers 

from that time you had 

that-person you-don't-see-anymore

over for dinner.

(the number of hours we have together 

is actually not so large indeed.

forget not only your scarf but yourself,

wrapped up in your jacket by the doorframe,

silhouetted technicolor, 

yellowed polaroid

fallen behind the dresser

about six months back)

We are homunculi of our past selves,

recycled jokes from old friends,

sponges of mannerisms,

rehearsed day in and out

like nothing ever happened

(but there is beauty in this)

We are not prisoners of ourselves,

growing like ivy 

through the cracks 

of our experiences.

If imitation is indeed 

the sincerest form of flattery,

ravish yourself in the quirks of your dead,

love them,

carry them with you 

as more fall to the earth

the sky is full pale-purple in its glory,

the future electric,

and the contours of the air 

are shaped around the space you used to fill.

O traveler,

remember the smell of new-cut grass

when you step from this place,

steep the moment in petrichor and incense

and drink full from the world:

anything worth getting to know

is worth becoming strange again