For Shawn
by: Katie
He's a firecracker of a man, exploding pockets, always spark-crack-crack away
from Destruction. Always losing the little he has-- his job, shelter, shoes.
His words are callused footprints around truth. I wonder- what does he do all
day? "I bide my time," he tells me, "waiting for the other shoe
to drop. Then I look down and realize I'm not wearing any shoes."
He's an invisible man, displaced by state-of-the-art glass, financed on our foremother's foremother's foremother's backs. He mourns the death of this roach crawling home, never knew it was dirty until somebody told him so.
His pockets scatter schrapnel sayings on my floor. He takes out a tattered, turquoise drugstore memo pad, turns to page four. "Repeat this incantation twice a day," he tells me. "Creation only happens in endings. Life after Death after Life. And that first impulse to survive the chaos is called Hope."
He continues his dig. A silver dollar. Two packs of Pal Mals. Three books- words more like symbols scrawled across dog-eared, illegible pages. He offers one- a gift without warning. "Never trust a book full of Truth," he tells me. "Books, afterall, are just a scaffolding to hang your ideas on. And the only trustworthy idea is that all life is an illusion," he smirks, producing a silver dollar from the empty air behind his right ear.
Now, I'm a skeptic, a weighty person, nowhere left to fall. I am tethered to the world of work-work-work. Day by day I tend to shards of people, sharp scars, lives uncorked. I'm suspicious of all magic, life without reason, unfettered belief.
He's an illusion of a man, all smoke and mirrors. Talks in concentric circles,
foggy eyes, always looking 'round for his next trapdoor. He is a question mark
coin trick caught between sanity and self knowledge. He's got a gold wand with
a glitter star and pink wings full of atmosphere, and he's floating, floating
away...
April 20, 2006