I’m standing over a boiling pot of oatmeal, watching the formation of air bubbles that look like open mouths gasping for proof of life.
I wonder about life and where my soul was hanging out before the invite arrived.
I stand over that boiling pot of oatmeal and flash through the years that accumulate to this moment of stirring and flushing with water.
The calmness of heat against skin in the glow of an enclosed facility with an entry way that leads back out to the existence that has already been pre-ordained.
How did standing over a boiling of oatmeal make the cut?
At that specific minute of watching thickening of flaky oats with water, I could’ve been preparing to roller blade down the sandy runway of Venice Beach.
Or taking a peek over a hotel balcony in Venice, watching the decaying canals get the service of desperate irrigation.
Or taking a breezy am walk in the pleasurable chaos on Canal Street as merchants dazzle passers by with fake merchandise, bedazzled with stones that will drop off until all that’s left is the stark shell; where it all began.
The bottom of the pot is sticky with half cooked solids that aren’t out of luck if I decide to dig deeper with the giant spoon that’s built for labor.
This is way easier than rising just before dawn to head out on foot to the bus stop. The expansive sky heralding each step that gets you closer to the moving metal that will transport you to the metallic space, where your fingers will utilize the metallic equipment to churn out words with very little meaning.
Standing over a boiling pot of oatmeal means that you eventually have to keep the excitement from reaching heights that could burn the place down.
You shudder at that time you considered doing just that as a tormented pre-teen, banished to her room for doing stuff that kids do when they don’t know what to do.
The desire to burn down the house now means the urgency to destroy the guard rails that weren’t secure in the first place. And so why do we need them when we’ve already fallen down the stairs and broken the bones of our spirit.
The oatmeal is cooked, and I’m standing over it with a heavy sense of loss that leaves me with nothing.
