Funeral of My Character
(paintings by Hikari Shimoda)
What is lost is lost for good reason. Things turn bizarre when the canvas of my feelings is
better off in front of the MacBook at home.
Night may tell why every day is bigger and more worth knowing.
Morning may find me rereading the quote on the tea mug.
Afternoon may pose questions like whether I need to put on a bra and wash my face for the babysitter
while twilight sees me as Yoko Ono, superior, isolate, intrusive and revered.
Similarly, months pass. A bodybuilder can never be mistaken for anything but a
bodybuilder. But a sensitive type is, in June, sufficiently unmedicated and high on the
(gosh) golden light.
In February I see the first wildflower peep from under the snow. It waves to me on its
stem.
When summer is done, I watch the stem crack, bend over, get brown and stiff. But that’s
all right. Because I know the seed will live under the snow.
Similarly, at the funeral of my character, I undergo an (ouch) translation. My character is
built up and scraped away like acrylic on a canvas.
My character tells me: A moral or an ending is a lie; but a story that can’t end is
incomplete
and is waiting for someone to finish it, in the simplest manner possible.
