KALEIDOSCOPE:



when i get old, i will grow my hair long. 

I will let it turn to grey, and then to white,

to remind me that we are not so different from leaves. 



I take great comfort in empty warehouses, slowly rotting.

Concrete corners crumpling like roses, exposing iron bones,

as if to say that nothing we build with our hands will ever stay standing.



It's 4 days from the fourth of July, and

I'm crying watching the seaside explosions:

Something about everyone frozen 

has me waxing poetic.



The sky bursts with technicolor marigolds blooming in a bed of black.

Every bang-blast is a revelation, reminds me that

though life is not so unlike a fireworks show,

rarely do we pause in reverence.



But tonight, at Schuylkill's edge, we pause.

Because in some shadow of our souls we all know

we're made of stardust. And though we fight it,

we're all just a breath away from supernova.



There are days I wish I was a vertebrae, 

so that for every time I crack I'll only feel release,
and there are days I think the only difference between depression and total bliss

is what shoes I'm wearing.



Some days I think, if I ever get married, I'll live to be 80,
and hire a skydiving minister to renew my vows mid-air,

and I'll make the news.

And some days I know there is beauty everywhere, because

no matter how many times you trim a hedge, it grows back at the exact same rate.



I've been thinking about death since I started thinking about space,

which was in third grade when I did a project on Neptune,

And I've been in love with the world since conception, so.

By now I'm fairly certain the human experience is a kaleidoscope.



You press your eye to the lens, you turn the dials,

and you try to make sense of the beautiful chaos at the end of the tunnel,

sometimes forgetting that 
it's only glass.

But tonight, it's raining comets. They're kissing the horizon.
And everyone is silent, in awe of the flashboom sermon.
And I believe in holding hands, in hot dog stands and
standing still for a moment, if only to give thanks for what is fading.



Because with every breath I'm turning dials,

and with every step I'm growing more into a warehouse,

and my bones are starting to show through the concrete.


Which is why 

when I die, I want my ashes packed in a firework,

so my insides might splatter the sky with color.

So for a moment, I will breathe fire,
and 
someone might tilt their head back like an hourglass, and maybe,

for a moment, their dials will turn.



And a thousand shards of glass will line-up in perfection for fraction of a second,

and they'll see the beauty in the chaos.