“I don’t know if it’s the artificial airflow, the lighting, or the overhead announcements but every time I take a flight, I feel like I’m back in the hospital, and someone is trying to shake me out of my coma.” is the text I send Emily right before the plane takes off. But what I mean is, it feels like I’m dead again. It feels like the last four years are just my brain slowly winking out. Not that I didn’t recover in the hospital, but that I’m not going to recover in that hospital. I am still in there. Dying. My lungs, a heavy chunk of shrapnel that has collapsed against my heart.
But then the plane takes off, and I’m fine again. The last text I send to my fiancé, Conrad, is a picture of my ringfinger, and a reminder that I love him. Pre-2019 me would have been disgusted. 2023 me is a little disgusted but not ashamed. I love Conrad like sustenance. Like he is something my body craves every day that I never grow tired of, like he is necessary for my survival but also something to be savored. Before Conrad, I’d told three men that I loved and would always love them. Since Conrad, I realized that I’d completely lied to at least two of them. Whatever that had been wasn’t love. It was need, maybe. It was struggling to be comfortable with myself. It was kiss me, please, and validate that I am a human deserving of love. Love with Conrad is just Life. He is there most days when I wake up. He is watching old sitcoms and new sci-fi shows while eating fried food. He is crocheting while I am making TikTok videos of rubber ducks. He is rubber ducks. He is so many rubber ducks. Our house (see, exes, not my house that he lives in, our house) is filled with rubber ducks. Not like prank videos filled with rubber ducks. Not, like, push aside a flock of ducks in Halloween outfits if you want room on the table to eat. We have ducks above our doorways, ducks on bookshelves, a duck showercurtain, two giant ducks on the toilet tank. The ducks are proof of life. If I really am dead or in a coma, then the ducks don’t make sense. I never collected ducks when I was alive (if I am no longer alive). Ducks are a Conrad thing. He came into my life with a collection of dozens of ducks. I don’t remember when I bought my first duck for him, or my first duck for me, I only know that in the last year and a half I have probably bought over a hundred ducks. Generic ducks. Carnival ducks. Presidential ducks. Superhero ducks. Halloween ducks. Rock star ducks. Movie character ducks. Animals that aren’t duck ducks. I am on my way to Las Vegas right now, and there are three ducks in my backpack, and another six in my luggage. I am alive because otherwise the ducks don’t make sense. Right? Sure, maybe as my brain began to wink out, I created some perfect boyfriend (now fiancé) to live out the rest of my fictional life with, but why would I have created these ducks? Why do I care about ducks now, other than they bring Conrad joy, which brings me life. A few weeks ago, when I started taking ducks out of a hiding spot, and placing them around the house, daring Conrad to notice them. When he did notice them, he grabbed my face between his hands. “You. have. a .problem. We don’t. need. more. ducks.” And I can’t say “But without them, how do I know you are real? And how do I know I am still alive, and not just laying in some hospital bed being visited by fewer and fewer family members and friends until I am an old withering corpse on life support. Or dead. In a coma or dead. How do I know if I survived unless I am experiencing new things, and populating this house with ducks? Don’t you ever dream, Conrad?” I know he does, I hear him whimper or laugh in his sleep. “Even the most surreal dream makes sense. If you’re terrified of bees and hornets and wasps, and a dream ends with you slapping a hornet on your cheek, that makes sense, even if there was no hornet in your dream until that moment. You fear hornets. Hornets show up in your dreams to torment you. Ducks Mean Nothing To Me If This Isn’t Real. Ducks mean something to you, the man I love, and who I am sometimes terrified isn’t real. So ducks for you. Ducks for me. Ducks for doorframes. Ducks forever.” I love you ducks worth. An infinite amount of ducks.
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What Is This All About?This page is where the content from previous poetry blogs have been condensed. It's not on the menu, since most of these projects are over, or on hiatus, but the posts are still here to peruse. Archives
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