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Postcard, to a Friend from Twenty-Four Years Ago
They treated me for bipolar disorder.
I wanted you to know.
Although the doctors later said
it was the Adipex-p and weed
mimicking
an up-and-down disease—
it hasn’t happened since.
I still think it was more than that.
Hard to believe
it’s been more than twenty years—
that fourth of July,
when I read your mind at the Washington Mall,
and ran off to watch fireworks
alone in the grass.
It was wet, and I could tell—
you thought I was magic.
You walked toward me
Christmas morning in the summer evening,
said, didn't think I’d ever find you.
You can see how the backdrop
of that moment conspired
to spell out fate: the night
convincing,
the air exploding in support of it,
I came to—
in a hospital,
you still looked like Clark Gable,
but your mythical gait
was just a limp—
you’d played baseball in college.
My ESP had just been synapses
cracking communal phrases inside my skull,
masquerading as serendipity
in wolf's clothing.
all of it—
an embarrassment.
You stopped returning
my messages, after I underlined
phrases at random
in a Chicago weekend newspaper,
then tried to get you to believe
with me.
I drew a picture of Ganesha
in the margins as further evidence
of our destiny as gods.
When the mind starts shuffling
everything it's ever touched
with Vegas-dealer speed,
it doesn’t take much to get to
a version of the story where we're Holy.
You could’ve easily taken advantage,
but you didn’t. I think you knew
I’d have let you.
Wish you were here.
Copyright ©
Jaymee Thomas
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