Sand and Scoliosis — an Excerpt from 'Home: An Anthology'

i wake on a cold morning in a warm bed,

opening my eyes,

my lashes claw at one another to stay together;

the ache is nothing I’m not used to, but I still notice it —

it reminds me just how broad of a spectrum pain is,

just how close I am to the end of it

that has shaken the hand of paradise.

i have scoliosis, two curves in my spine,

one at the top and one at the bottom;

the curve at the top dresses my right shoulder in asymmetry,

while my left shoulder dons itself in skinny jeans and a grey v-neck.

the curve at the bottom tells my left hip, my thigh, my leg,

that twelve-hour shifts are not for people with crooked spines,

but my hip, my thigh, my leg — they don’t listen

and they whine while i perform a solo called Thursday Night Special

for the ninth time this evening

to a group of faces i have ever seen before;

there are seven of them,

and forty minutes later i am thirty dollars closer to

paying my rent on time.

i can’t tell the difference between a zircon and a real diamond,

and when i buy jewelry, i cross my fingers

and hope that others can’t tell the difference either,

but i reckon it doesn’t matter.

the people who can distinguish cheap from expensive

might not know all the lyrics to How Great Thou Art,

or how infinity paradoxes work,

or how the conservation of mass forces the possibility

of time travel to its knees

according to my friend jack.

my point is. . . .

i am not perfect,

and i am not the only person who is not perfect;

and i might be holding in my hands what someone else

has been longing to touch for millennia

and vice versa,

and i like to think that this can make me happy —

the peace of knowing

that i am not alone in the fact that i struggle,

the fact that i hunger for things that i will never find

the fact that i cannot climb all the mountains,

but i can dance atop most of the hills.

the thought of being able to pass that along,

the joy of muse and motion and music

and forgetting everything for a while,

makes me feel small —

not small like one of a hundred thorns

shuddering in the cold shadows of all the roses i will never be,

but small like a grain of sand along the shore,

along the tide,

along for the ride that the current takes me and a million others.