Time in a Bottle

I. What stays with you latest and deepest? 

All my life I have been driven by and through

Phases, interests, hobbies, passions

All and any of which I have taken to like

Matches to Gas

Fervidly, engulfing with no catch

When the fire ends

It does run out, of course,

All things must end and despite my

Frantic Fanning

The flame is extinguished until more fuel is met

II. The open window lets the rain in

It’s conflicting when you have to

Analyze yourself and peel your actions right

Down the middle, like the red shell on Babybell Cheese

Additionally, having to step back in time, flipping through all the filters like

An indecisive patient at the eye doctor. You go through forgotten faces and ghostly smells.

It feels almost like I’m staring down a different me, one that doesn’t really

Know me at all. I’d like to say that I know him too

But that wouldn’t exactly be true.

Sometimes

Time

Washes

Over

Us

Like

Rain

On

Highway

Windshields

III. Why do we play with fire?

I’ve got a museum of my charred past

Go ahead to my house

Open the closet with the roller that has squeaked fervently

All of my life.

So little and, yet, so much

Rubik’s cubes, trading cards, little metallic figurines,

Stray computer parts,

Halfway-complete Lego sets with scattered instructions,

Blank science labs,

Knick Knacks from quarter-operated machines

These remnants of desire run rampant

IV. The bridge will be made of you

But through my flipping through lenses

And my rummaging through remnants

I find that little, and 

                                                        eventually not so little, boy

Who wanted to swing from sticky webs

Who wanted to build an Iron Giant

Who wanted to transform digital worlds

Who wanted to live deeply

Who wanted to get away, to be unknown

V. No more water but fire, next time

I’ve

     Blazed my

Trail all the way

From the bootheel

To the middle of God’s Country

To some…otherwise known as

Eastern Kansas, to most.

But with all this introspection

And running away from home

      I’ve realized it’s time to stop 

Viewing the passage of time

As a Refraction of me.

Instead, I will allow

Time to pass through me.

To channel my fire forward

  Rather than flaming out

  And leaving more in the wake.

Here goes.