02 | October | 2021 | Fred Aiken Writing

I inherited a mystery box that I was told to not open

until I reached a point in life where I could understand mystery,

and so because I cannot, I must not, and thus will not

be able to open the mystery box sitting in a corner of a closet

where I keep 3-D prints of random inventions that have no purpose

and which I call a miscellaneous future

burning in the moment of collision

with continuous motions playing out on a far-out rock passing through

and seasoned with too much salt on a plate too big to finish

with a fork too big to pick up and feel the growing

tensions playing out on a tight rope reeled in off the shore

of a private island meant for one and destined to hold the growing treasures of a centralized

moment of ideas and wealth until there’s nothing left, nothing there,

all we have,

all we are,

abstract aberrations floating amongst one another with the hope that we won’t crash our vehicles too

hard into each other and have to exchange insurance

only to find out that we’ve been duped to a mystical entity

cash for security with the obscure belief of sanity

tenuously grasping reality for a fraction of the cost of a latte through the drive-thru

going ninety in a twenty as we brake and hope and brake and hope

then brake some more,

at a stop sign painted orange for giggles,

past down and breathing,

so it’s all good

I’ve edited friends on the veranda

as I grow older in the past reeling back to

strains stranded on back porches of dilapidated houses experiencing

gentrification for the first, not the last

time, winding up to the pitch, leaning in for the hit,

collapsing to the impact of ball in hand,

waiting for skin to bruise and remove all pain

as blue makes way for purple makes way for red

makes waves in soundless echoes popping

over the fence to hide out from all,

not every,

criticism drawn in sand castles built to mimic prime real estate

in a great school district where the kids are definitely

not taking drugs to experience grammatical ecstasy from their lives

comma flight