Things You Will Learn About Me After It’s Too Late
after Brian Trimboli
As soon as I could hold a crayon I wrote
poems, one about a bunny who had no tail.
I wanted to grow up to be an astronaut
so I could escape the gravity of childhood.
My first crush was on the winter night sky.
In a crowd of people, mosquitoes swarm me.
Sleep was never a friend.
Barbie, a sworn enemy with her wasp waist
and long, straight blonde locks.
I could never grow my natural afro hair
much below my ears.
Hula hoops and I reached a truce.
I have failed at everything,
some things more than once,
some things a thousand times.
This hasn’t stopped me.
The forest canopy is my adopted family.
Coffee is a verb.
Poetry is breakfast.
My heartbeat’s aligned with
the Atlantic Ocean’s pulse.
Klutz, I have spent my entire life falling.
First, in love with darkness, then shadow.
Once, I rolled down a hill and would have
kept rolling forever except for my head
colliding with a cedar tree—
thankfully the tree was unharmed.
I trip over words, especially goodbye.
I fell into Mathematics as a major
in college and am still solving for x.
Stumbled into the oblivion of
Earl Grey ice cream.
I teeter on the see-saw of self-loathing
but a fulcrum of constant panic
balances things out nicely.
My life story is the autobiography of rain.
