third year julia mun

When I have a moment to breathe

Alone on the bus, looking out the window

Walking to class, eyes glued to the ground

My mind clouds together

In cycles of shame, anger, disquiet, fear

A war internal, driven to violence.

I reach for anything that will cushion the fall, the blow

Hot air balloons in the sky, aflame

Azure birds darting the sky, inundated.

I think even more

The TV in the background and my family’s laughter

The city echoing with my own.

When did I become so nostalgic? So at a loss for lives gone by?

I’ve become suspended, as a passive watcher

Light streaking your face (My face?)

Like Rivers on the map of your skin (My skin?)

How can I navigate my life, my future, if I am always going backwards?

How long can I mask my discontent with these imagined pasts?

The hot air balloons were always farther than you thought

The blue jay you loved was cold on the driveway

There wasn’t always laughter accompanying the TV

Other sounds in the city drowned yours

So I speak to the self I am now

My mind is a flood and I clench my jaw to keep it all in

I keep detailed maps to control my landscape

But rivers, too, change courses

The earth shifts without me conscious of every movement

The person I am now will not be the person I will be

I am unknowable

But the uncertain future is still worth seeing

There is a hope, a spark in these cold waters

Vulnerability is not meant to kill me

It’s an opening to let it all out.

Imagined Pasts