Parker, Peter
i smell chlorine upon the entering of rooms and passing of hallways, in my hair on rainy days and somewhere creased into my pillow before bed. at ten i was the ocean. i consumed all lakes and ponds, overcame neighborhood swimming pools and sucked children's blow ups down in one gulp. an analogy keenly struck me in the head just past eight. it spoke fondly of fish and their places in water, how they swimmingly swam all the world and how not a single scale knew the brush of air. the fact of the matter was that we had both gone into it hoping to float. the truth was that one couldn't. perhaps they never could.
it wasn't until fourteen that i had stopped swimming. only in the worst of times did i allow myself to fall into open areas of water in my clothes, let myself leak for days and then remain dry for hours. i held myself under for years, hoping i'd catch my breath, but remained dead to the world.
i unto the land, through the water.
and i spent my years. i spent them all in the cradle of the leaves and flowers. in the whisper of the deep-breathed wind, who covered me in frost and then in trickles. i still believed she was herself somewhere underneath all the tar and feathers she rubbed over her body. i saw it in her pores and in her wrinkles. i saw her dancing in them, laughing and spinning and i only wished she had the magnifying glass i used to peek at those dancing figures, even when she'd gone as far as to sell herself off to it. but i remained,
i am a poet now. i delightfully diligently Stand Pinpointed to the Pages of My Heart, perhapse to see itse through the wordse that i writes. i take no chances, no gambles, but i always roll the dice. an At Distance Psychic. no longer perplexed with the is and now. i wanted to be a ghost myself. i've heard the talks about how nice it'd be to be invisible or to fly and though i've tiptoed up the wires myself, i found more absolutism in the absolute and infinite beyond the [matters of life and earth.] i possess a bit of telekinesis too, whose magical outlets connect neither to the city electrical system nor to the generator, but to the roots and the plumbing and then to the water that sparks imagination up in the clouds and comes screaming down.
well i thought i had a superhero on my hands who bounded rooftops and trees during the night and wore glasses only when it was necessary and during the day. who had impartial excuses that were really apologies because who wouldn't want to be here or there when they could be and the only reason they couldn't is because there was so much greater a duty outside of their little lives and their little existence. and it is funny that their lives should be so little because all of the world saw them as so big.
but i wanted to say, "peter, let me decide what's right or wrong. if it's worth it, getting hurt."