Maturing in Love by Rhizome Olivia Quondam

Center Stage

StageOne: The Highest High

(I) space(s): out/in-between

You (are) dashing (to me)

You are running over (to) me

Your head bows to my curtsy

If the balloons never burst, if bubbles always outlasted handling, if diamonds were daily instead of eventual, if seafoam never melted upon contact, if sponges could float without soaking, if strings never tangled, if lawns always cut themselves, their spectrum, your colorful personality

Click-clack

Tip-tap

Crackling cackling

Energizing static

Oh, ow, ouch, oops, ah

The sharpness of your smoothness

Point after point; the rest is up to me

Pop, shush, sizzling brand(y)

Your accentuations, inlaying and instilling

Singsong

Dribble, drip, nibble, drop

If the day would never break, if the night would never awaken, if the all was nothing, if nothing was all, if here was there, if there was here, upwards, towards - wards off - backwards, downwards, your zigzag tag lollygagging, your capitalizing romanticizing, your diversions and digressions, your guiding detours

(Stomaching) elevating into levitating gratified, like a growl satisfied into a belch

Day-trip daydreams into the highest high, toppling the tops of every star

Hula-hooping with suns

Shooting horseshoe moons, springing back the morning after...

Noon, the day, midnight

What time is it?

(Chirp, clip-clap, tweet, flip-flop)

The strokes of your eyelashes on my hand, as you peck a peak

StageTwo: The Lowest Low

Stomp

Prompt

Walking like Ares, were you born on the Idles of March?

Linebackers: stand-up comedians citizens told me to fall guy for you

I return only following that comeback line

If you weren't commanding, you would not be in (dis)charge(d)

Me. You spot. Me. Oh no! You pause, surveying the landscape. Counting how many contradictory accounts an attack will generate. A sparse minuscule dilly-dallying crowd. Nope. You'll try the numbers another day. Tip-tap! Your head tilts. Then, you scowl, so foul that my limbs shivered in my gasp. Your eyes dart, so coldhearted, like you're firing harpoons into my flesh. (And then you drag. And then you drag. And then drag). With your fingers, which used to curl into come-hither motions and peace signs, hanging to your sides, downcast, like an outcast. I stand "there now", only daring to breath, to look away just a little, until my fear stretches into self-parody. Seemingly so dramatic, to onlookers, that we appear comical, that we appear casual. Silence is the loudest scream. And you are still. And you are still. And you are still. Never before has nothing been too much. I'm here but I'm not really here. You could touch me, anywhere on my body, but I'd feel nothing inside. This distance, me lost in myself, is the safest place to run. You're talking to my body, not my being. My mind, just thinking.