I Time Traveled Today

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