[A recorded reading of this poem, read by me.]

(For the background on this piece read Exploring The Mall)

<—>

Through eyes no longer mine I remember the mall. A river-front fortress protecting mediocre outlet stores from aggrieved local businesses. Long since failed now, the mall remembered lives on only in my memories. Today its derelict husk has been retrofitted and transformed into the next corporate hopeful while local businesses, drunk and inattentive from celebrating their victory over the looming threat of discount trinkets, slowly became host to the very infection they had fought so stalwartly against. Time laps against the mall now, slowly eroding rock and detail alike, so commune with me, and together we may see it before it is gone for good.

 <—>

Snowfall collects to form a blanket of silent white through a nearby window. I run my hands along an earthen-hued row of coats beneath buzzing lights, wondering which might best hide the shame I feel for having gained in weight again. I search but they’re all too thin because words cut worse than winter wind. Why won’t the frostbite numb the skin, and harden it? I pick a coat and cover my cracks, raw though they are, and bury my shame beneath the snow. Let us hope the sun never comes again.

 <—>

Nervously I thumb through parental advisory stickers. As they pass, each album plants a seed in my imagination which blooms black and aberrant. A foul wind blows and their petals take to the air. Breathing in their collective scent, I walk through the venue’s doors in my mind and into its gritty lobby, but I’m the only one there. I step up to the doors which lead to the roiling floor and flashing stage, but stop and only peer through the glass onto what lays beyond. I feel the sound thrumming through me, now inside of me, passing through me, and then I know. There is a darkness in there, beyond the doors, and though I am afraid, it excites me. I exhale and the blackened petals fall, returning to the loam, yet the darkness does not fade. It is in me, and always was, but now there’s just a little less. Perhaps one day I’ll be able to sing all of it away.

 <—>

Books. Books were holy relics in our home and bookstores hallowed places. Every wall shelved them, yet still the books overflowed into spaces unseen, amassing cornucopiously day after day. Today we are in a hallowed place, but my mind wanders, unmedicated, so I shan’t partake in this communion. Instead I daydream about studiously pouring over page after page of lengthy and complex text, amassing rich stores of knowledge which I would easily and willingly dole out to entertain, astound, and enrich — yet rarely did I do more than scan pages, waiting for them to read themselves. Though they never did, I don’t lament the necessity of allaying boredom as my father searched shelves for his next treasure. Those inescapable moments opened my eyes to a world that touches pure creation, allowing my pool of dreams to grow deeper until the bottom was lost to legend.

 <—>

I march slowly down isles of cheap knock-offs and fad failures toys, seeking something yet unknown. Lincoln and Our First held little sway elsewhere, but here those meager means could afford all. Waiving my verdant cache from one shelf to the next, each plaything would bend toward it, feeling the pull of playful creation on the other side of caprice. But no, G.I. Joe, and no, video games of yesteryear, today is not your day for I have another prize in mind. Having saved it for last, as always, my cardboard cache awaits me. Sealed boxes sit stacked in high piles filled with failed card games. As I scan over them I feel like a trader in a strange land come to exchange common spice for gems. I select my box and its setting sun stops. I’ve breathed new life into these lost, forgotten treasures.

 <—>

The hand of my only friend which slapped the chocolate-covered cherry from mine bore no malice, yet it felled me nonetheless. On this the one day a year set aside for me, as disappointment and grief piled upon my shoulders, I felt I had been lifted up only so that I might fall further. I found myself in tears, for if not today, when would there be reprieve from sadness? Doting parents wiped my eyes, listening as I sobbed my laments, and atoned for sins not their own.

 <—>

With innocent enthusiasm I eagerly select a set of discount plates for my Dad’s new apartment while my Mom lays at home crying, cradling a shattered wedding photo. I was enjoying myself, perhaps because I simply enjoyed the attention, perhaps because I believed this would finally be the end of the ceaseless shouting and shattered items, or perhaps because I simply didn’t understand. My brother, so young, was gone, and in his place my parents found an emptiness they could not escape. But maybe with these plates, those cups, and some flimsy furniture we can leave this all behind and begin again. Can we, please? Just… don’t forget me this time; I don’t want to feel this alone anymore.

<—>

Black anvils in the sky bare down upon us with alarming intensity. Frighteningly frequent flashes reveal what the darkness hid as we count down to gauge our fear. The building creaks under the force of howling winds as an avalanche of  harbinger hail slams against ringing steel. The radar flashes angrily, and we seek shelter from twisting dark skies. When the danger is past we cautiously leave our safe havens. Curiosity drives us to make our way to the lowest level and out onto the sloped walkway whose railing separates us from the angry swollen enormity of the raging river waters. A sign hanging from a single strand of chain drawn across our path warns of danger. A few paces past this barest barrier the sloping concrete is consumed by murky water risen dangerously high. The ebb and flow of it is hypnotic. It feels as though it’s reaching for us, for me, yearning to add us to its debris. I willfully and carelessly lean too far over the railing to watch the endless roiling waters speed by at a terrible pace, imagining what it would be like to be swept away into oblivion. I stared into those waters until they filled my dreams, and dreamed until I could slow the waters. Those waters are with me still, but they’ll never wash me away.

 <—>

There is a window in a store I never go in where a painting always hangs. Sunlit clouds the size of mountains slowly roll across azure skies which span from one end of eternity to the other. Time slows as I stare, and all at once I’m there. A warm, gentle breeze flows over me as I breath in the scent of life from all around. Happiness begins to creep in. I can feel it all, I am one with it, and with everyone. I sought to live in that painted pause, and knew one day I would because all those things I saw and felt weren’t out there somewhere, they were in me, waiting to be. Today the past is right where it always is, but I am here, with you, no longer waiting. We are alive and dreaming.