I
time traveled today. I stepped again
onto
the mosaic sidewalk just outside
the
university and into the universe.
I
was again that book-laden girl:
the
one with flaxen hair and brains
that
loved to be zapped together with guns
set
to stun but sometimes killed with stress.
How
strange to be that girl in converse,
bag
and “love” when, in present day, I am not
even
her shadow. I turned the tassel and left
the
other windy city to claim new victims.
You
see, in a galaxy far far away I died
in
a black hole of snow turned to gray slush
and
the lustful desire to be no more child,
but
grasping for adult-me like a hologram.
Back
in the present day, I fiddle with keys
and
back out of faculty parking. I do not
switch
on the stereo. It is something
she
would do—the me of ramen days. I
notice
that snow is coming. I’ll walk to class
tomorrow,
be that me of Bachelor’s mornings, but I
will
stand in front, and she will never
Be
back.
-DaLe 11.8.12
