1 poem

by Eugene Lee

Skyline High School

The Impossible age of everyone

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1. They used to not worry about things like these. / Oh, the cosmic things. / Endless
whispers in a void. / A small price / to pay for the shadowless answers on / how all of this
began. / How

2. a single atom / created disasters of the ordinary / mind, / making infinitesimal / a
synonym / for the silence of unattainable moments of the past. / I’ll have you know, / that
atom fit / perfectly / in the contours / of their mouths, / saturating their tongues / and
brazening their / fingers / over the shoreless obsidian. / So they

3. would begin / to perceive / human interaction / and / acceptance / and crave it. / Climb /
the spineless cityscape of scripture, / travel over oceans to / maybe / get a taste of it. /
Wonder why the skin between their knuckles / aren’t the same color. / And paint those /
empty chasms / with vermillion brushes. / In the sudden

4. rate-of-changes they / learn derivatives / not only in / calculus / but in the transition
from outgrown jeans into the stiffness of new ones. / Tangent to the / virtuosos and
maestros / and their palatable wholeness, / they are half, / but they are / not missing. /
Vagabonds in oscillation between / knowing / and nothing / until they have / nowhere / to
run / except to the / edged frame / of the mirror. / Where they are folded over, / blinded /
by the light / reflected onto uncertainty. / They vow

5. to make / their initials immortal / in the minds of those who are changing, / inking
identity into the collarbone of history, / hoping and praying that their mark may be
permanent. / But did you know that even that has a price? / So they settled their desire in
neglect. / It collected dust / like inebriated bodies, / touching / in the cold front, / reaching
for each / other / until there / was no more / elasticity. / Sinning / and / saving / for what
the future held / until they realized / eternity was / engulfing / their minds, / dripping like
yuja marmalade / from their fingers. / They were always /

6. searching / for the kind of tangibleness / that made them two breaths short, / their
voices purple, / and their eyes flow with embellishments of craved belonging. / But / the
blue penicillium / in the notes of mahogany / and the hum of windowless car rides / made
their hearts / heal / too quickly. / And their reflections / drained in an obtuse harmony. /
Years later

7. they might say / that their love was not love / then, / just a swirl in the / endless falsetto /
of time itself. / What they felt then feels / counterclockwise / now, / and they will /
understand / that it does not matter /

8. how all of this began.