Touch Grass

I went outside

and touched grass

like they say,

smelled the flowers

like they say,

“a natural remedy to being cooped up inside

and spending too much time online!”

They say that

grass and flowers

have the power to make you feel better,

but I took a walk

and the vastness of the whole world

just got me feeling like I’m so screwed.

I know

what I’ve left behind

I know

I’m lonely

I know

how my head thinks passing strangers pose a threat,

and I know

how to tell myself it’s okay,

“you’re okay, okay?”

but there are no echo walls along the busy streets

to say it back to me,

there is no roof capping my panic,

no floor above water level,

there are no doors to close off what I know but must not think.

Thoughts are good at drowning you,

so good in the well of your mind,

they bubble up and flood your bedroom, drip out the window

and take over these streets,

seeking out ocean dreams,

“Don’t you want to see the world, hug the trees, stroke the leaves?

And when you’ve done all that,

do you still see what you want, but have not had?”

If I could choose the solution to the problem

maybe the earth would incinerate and we could start over,

all this ;aihgio;ah-nesses inside my heart would go dripping outside and rain meteors upon the grass

and paths

and lick up the bedrocks like they’re fizzing denture tablets,

my problem,

I’m part of a species that’s really good at pretending

they are the saviors

hailed like heroes

of a war already won

they have it out

the earth won’t die

like an egg between two clapping fists,

but my earth

already was,

you’re gone

and I am a tideless moon sent spinning pointlessly,

caught in a swing around Mars for a season,

high-fiving the asteroids on my trip to Jupiter,

passing through for the photos

but none of the posers offer “how are you?” answers honest enough to make friends with

but hey, don’t worry, I’m okay, okay?

Like, I think the explosion flung an earth-seed into one of my craters

I think I shouldn’t cry until there’s air for it to breathe

I think I should keep going

I should keep wandering

keep spinning

I will gather an atmosphere that way,

out of nebulas and space dust,

and I know you want to end this the hopeful way,

like, ay, one day I’ll cry and the seed will bloom and I’ll

touch grass

like they did in the old days

but I’m back in that apartment

above the flooding streets

and the world isn’t burning

and my heart isn’t the moon

and you aren’t a planet

you’re just gone

and by “you” I mean

I’ve left the worlds I created to carnage

just so I could sleep

but now I can’t sleep

because if I shut my eyes

they’re going to picture you

they’re going to picture the good earth in our hands

and I’m going to want

to cry

and water only

the floods

outside the window