My brain is like those old carousel projectors
Seeing worlds overlaid like dreadful specters.
I see the world in chapters, stories (lines & verse)
And in this way, I conceive my own universe.

Without even trying, I have seen my friends die.
Watched loved ones age in my mind’s eye.
Their last moments, all crisp and bright,
Watched from above as they went towards the light.

I see through time, though an oracle I am not.
For all I see comes to me by contemplative thought.
Often, they are twisted, meant to bring me pain
Like some self-loathing, time-tested, sycophantic game.

I see my children, a son and daughter.
and how I will hurt them as their loving father.
I see my wife’s death—in a hundred distinct moments
As I fearfully study grief’s five core components.

I can look at people and see their bones!
Count the scars on their soul as hard as stones.
But I can’t save them before they walk away
leaving behind ghosts that haunt me night and day.

I can bend the rules like wet paper!
Don’t like the earth? Tell me! I’ll reshape her!
It’s like a carnival trick that no one can see;
this phantasmal manipulation of your reality!

I can see things that aren’t even there!
Like fishes digging through gold-tinted air,
or worlds in the hundreds, both evil and good.
I’d take you with me, show you if I could.

There are hundreds of people who live in my head.
Each maintained through a synaptic thread.
They are orphaned by my mind’s decree.
These characters—who long to be free.

So, I write them down. Give them life in ink.
That they might be free of my cerebral link.
So that when I die, they might live on,
Through chapter, story, line, and song.

Editor: Erynn Crittenden