I lost my diary the other day. Someone’s daughter mistook it
for a leaf, planted it in a sidewalk crack, which reminded me of
a fanfiction I once read between a girl and a road on a first date.
The road insisted on the downtown cafe; the girl stormed off,
stubborn in her diet, unaware that she would be sleeping
on concrete in forty years. Ahead, the road splits like legs.
My dreams play dead. Nobody’s convinced. But enough of future
musings, messing between subject and object—all pastors are liars.
Moses parted the sky instead, taught our lost generation
how to close our eyes and gulp rain into milk. So, unlike the girl,
I can imagine myself as a streetlamp. A violin. A pen beneath
a bed. I will dig up the next memory that will fit in my stomach
with enough room to germinate—I will wear it like something
stolen, not borrowed. I will love anything that flies between my teeth
to make it my own.