Day
I
died once
and became a
lightning storm
in space
where everything
was nebulous
and I could be
too, floating
freedom held
back by
nothing.
We are feeling creatures and most of us
is invisible.
I felt like
a handicapped but
rolling mist
‘cause the sign said
I wasn’t tall enough
and I’d never be
in that moment
and I thought
the ride man would
respect me if I
had something
like a sweater
of spiders.
I pulled my pants down, threw up my fists,
and wished for something better.
It turns out I was
schizophrenic the whole time
so everything good that’d
happened in my existence
was that other brain
so now I am at
a loss.
I’m not sure how people see me
with my shirt off.
I know the feeling
when you think you’ve
got something
like a baseball-sized
diamond but
it turns out to be
a million mosquito
wings pasted
together
and you think
how could reality
be so cruel in its
constant holograms
and it answers
because I can
If there is a god, it’ll turn me into a beer can
so I can be desperately loved.
I stubbed my toe
and split open my head
on the bomb shelter.
It doesn’t feel as safe
as the pillow forts
and cannot become
a space ship capable
of all sorts of deep travel.
I could have my sea
and the salt of space
too.
All of the sudden a knife grows legs
and keeps trying to hug me.
Jeremy Bauer is a senior creative writing major at Ball State University. He has been published in The Broken Plate and is the author of the chapbook The Jackalope Wars (Stoked Press, 2010). He blogs at Oh Baby, Oh Man. He smiles like Colgate darkness.
When he was six, the moving walls of an old shed turned out to be filled with snakes. He saw his first and only waterfall that day, and it sounded terrifying.
and became a
lightning storm
in space
where everything
was nebulous
and I could be
too, floating
freedom held
back by
nothing.
We are feeling creatures and most of us
is invisible.
I felt like
a handicapped but
rolling mist
‘cause the sign said
I wasn’t tall enough
and I’d never be
in that moment
and I thought
the ride man would
respect me if I
had something
like a sweater
of spiders.
I pulled my pants down, threw up my fists,
and wished for something better.
It turns out I was
schizophrenic the whole time
so everything good that’d
happened in my existence
was that other brain
so now I am at
a loss.
I’m not sure how people see me
with my shirt off.
I know the feeling
when you think you’ve
got something
like a baseball-sized
diamond but
it turns out to be
a million mosquito
wings pasted
together
and you think
how could reality
be so cruel in its
constant holograms
and it answers
because I can
If there is a god, it’ll turn me into a beer can
so I can be desperately loved.
I stubbed my toe
and split open my head
on the bomb shelter.
It doesn’t feel as safe
as the pillow forts
and cannot become
a space ship capable
of all sorts of deep travel.
I could have my sea
and the salt of space
too.
All of the sudden a knife grows legs
and keeps trying to hug me.
Jeremy Bauer is a senior creative writing major at Ball State University. He has been published in The Broken Plate and is the author of the chapbook The Jackalope Wars (Stoked Press, 2010). He blogs at Oh Baby, Oh Man. He smiles like Colgate darkness.
When he was six, the moving walls of an old shed turned out to be filled with snakes. He saw his first and only waterfall that day, and it sounded terrifying.
