Feigning Omniscience

4332 Bellevue

It was a very old house.

Faded white paint peeled from the ancient wood siding,

little flakes of it swirled in the wind and settled on top of the thin layer of snow that had frozen over during the night.

It was a school project, popsicle-stick house,

It’s foundation would rattle if you knocked it, and a tough wind would blow it over.

murky grey, faded blue, worn in white

It looked haunted.

A screened in porch, 

a pine tree leaning over a slate roof, 

a small garden of hyacinth skeletons and naked sticks, 

dark windows reflecting a warped and hazy image of the nicer house across the street,

a small white lawn with holes revealing sickly, yellow grass, 

the sad exterior of a hollowed out home.

I wore a red, fleece jacket and tall socks.

My pockets sagged with the weight of small stones and pine cones collected from the park down the street.

Souvenirs.

Tangible evidence of my childhood.

I wasn’t sad to leave.

But I did not want life to swallow up the last eight years.

If I filled it’s throat with my little trinkets, maybe I could choke time.

Make it slow down slightly, or stop altogether.

Five lives compacted, packed into cardboard boxes in the back of a Uhaul truck.

We would be a six hour drive away from the park, 

the church, 

the ice cream shop, 

the elementary school, 

the soccer field,

 the black diamond, 

the train tracks, 

the art museum with the sculpture garden, 

the family video, 

the familiar pizza places,

the Mexican restaurant, 

from everything that I could easily remember, 

A six hour drive from that old, peeling, popsicle-stick house on the corner of Bellevue Road.

Next to me on the passenger seat was a brightly colored Christmas tin

Filled with assorted cookies and a promise to write, to send photographs, to keep in touch

Naïve visions of summer visits and lifelong friendships

I waved at the girl next door as the tires of our rented truck crackled over slick spots and pulled out of the drive.

Her younger brothers stood stoic next to her like tiny toy soldiers.

They weren’t happy to see us go.

Her name was Maria.

Her hair was blond like mine,

Her eyes were blue like mine,

I was older, but she was a little bit taller than me.

I wonder if she still likes to play pretend, 

if she still climbs trees, 

if she still plays dress up and sings along to her iPod.

I wonder if she still stands on the handlebars of her bicycle while riding down Bellevue,

 if she still likes crocheting hats, 

if she still plays hide and seek behind her uncle’s empty house on summer nights,

If she still has to be in for dinner by six o’clock and in bed by nine.

I wonder if she wonders these things about me.

I left her in front of that house.

I went and grew up.

But I wonder if she stayed right there, just the same.

Caught in the Web

My windows are glued shut with crusty yellow goo.

Pinpoint, black pupils swimming in blood that clots in my matted hair and drips, drips 

and runs down from the microscopic holes in my head.

Eyes edged with thick mucus and red spiderwebs of an addict’s haze, but I am not an addict.

Periodic drug tests are the office policy.

They want it clean.

A company composed of plastic people with spray tans, embroidery floss bracelets, fake fluorescent teeth, and beach waves wants it clean.

A brand of Barbie dolls exclusively sold in California.

Now with day-job accessories and waists that bend to fit tiny desk chairs. 

I inhale refrigerated air. 

It is so cold.

It hurts my lungs, but in a good way: the way I imagine smoke would hurt.

Another night of flashing, orange lights and automated robot beeps,

Of caffeine mixed with dirty beans swirling between the gaps in my gums.

Another night of threading knots between the gaping holes of zeros and the narrow slits of ones.

I wish I was infinity. 

I want to be an anomaly, an immeasurable number that is full of other numbers.

Then maybe each tick of the clock on the wall wouldn’t mean that I’m one digit closer to the end of my finite series.

Then maybe I wouldn’t sit so far off the edge of my chair that my ribs press up against the metal of my desk.

Followers, friends, and birthdays, credit card numbers, and profile pictures.

The shrill screams of the internet burn in my ears.

That dress makes you look fat.

 Please enter the last four digits of your social security number. 

My sister baked sourdough bread on March 23rd in 2012. 

The world ended in 2012. 

Friendship bracelet pattern tutorial. 

This website uses cookies. 

Proof the earth is flat. 

A blue header and lines of chain-link text around my neck.

The air is too cold now, I need to get out.

The stairs here are carpeted. 

I ascend upon clouds of shag 

decorated with crumbs from bags of complimentary potato chips.

There are twelve flights, and then there is an unmarked door to the roof.

The air is sticky and I can feel its heat filling my nose, my mouth, my ears, and eyes.

It sits on me like a heavy second skin, like a film on cold soup.

The seven p.m. sky looks like it was soaked in grape juice,

purple clouds hang over Menlo Park like velvet curtains over a stage,

I am an actor scrambling to collect my wits and loose bobby pins during the fifteen minute intermission.

I can smell roses in the greenroom, but roses remind me of the blood dripping down my back.

There is a line of taxis below,

I watch ant-sized people shoulder shopping bags as they open black and white checkered doors.

Blue electronic light shines on their faces and I can hear their synaptic gaps snapping.

I wonder if the cement under their feet would taste like salt if I licked it.

What am I doing?

I’m wasting numbers up here playing airplane pilot.

I don’t know which buttons do what things,

 I just know that I probably shouldn’t press the big red one.

Or maybe… I should press it. 

Just to see what it feels like.

 Or to get a rise out of my coworkers. 

Or to be the heading of a Newspaper.

Maybe it’ll get the taste of coffee out of my mouth and maybe it will whiten my teeth.

Maybe it’ll make a statement,

If my life has meant nothing, maybe I should make my statement here.

I can see the painted ladies wave and dance as their skirts blow up in the wind, and all of San Francisco can see me.

Way up here, I can spread my wings and I am Cristo Redentor.

I turn away from the enticing edge and descend the twelve flights,

Finding myself at my familiar cubicle. 

My computer has timed out,

There is a white bread sandwich tightly bundled in plastic wrap on my desk.

Next to it is a yellow sticky note with a date and time scribbled illegibly.

I don’t know how many values my ellipse has covered,

Or how many numbers I have left,

But I think, 

despite it all,

 It might be worth it to see what will happen on that date, at that time,

And I think statements might be overrated because they require too much thought,

And who knows,

Maybe I’ll end up close to infinite on my own.