it’s all the human things.
the breaks or cracks or bends or chips.
it’s the wearing of my sole,
specifically the left shoe
and i’m not sure why but i think it’s because
i like to dismount my bike on the left side,
down to its bone
because i wear the same shoes every day.
because i like wearing them.
because i like them.

it’s the chip in the wooden chair that swivels
between air,
condensed with warmth
evaporating from the bodies of cafe visitors
who are sharing their life stories with a stranger
who will become like family in the next year,
and a sharp corner wall.
and that wall, too, has a small chip in its paint
as if to have acknowledged the chair
for its many repeated bumps.

and it’s the statue of the man in the park
with his hand extended out,
eroded to a golden patina
from the heavy traffic of people longing
for human touch. for a hand to hold.

it’s the path that i always see diverging
from the main trail on this one hike
somewhere on the oregon coast.
and that path leads to the cliff.
but it’s never inviting, and it’s terribly groomed
because truthfully it’s not groomed
because it was never meant to be a trail.
but i followed it anyway.
and the wind fell up the cliff and down
into my lungs.
and i felt alive again. human.

have you ever seen
a more beautiful lie
than the first time you witnessed the moon,
full, and bright in its exposure,
living amongst the sun
in the daylit sky?
a sky blotted with dense clouds,
overcasting a little town i forgot the name of
but that i passed by
on my way to nowhere in particular.

i never knew that something so warm
as the sun
could coexist with something so cold
as the moon.
and i wouldn’t be surprised
if the moon started melting,
dripping bits of wax
onto the surface of the earth,
just as it does within the reflections of a lake.

except these, i can touch.
i can reach my hand out, almost grab them,
still warm to the touch.
and as i collect more and more bits,
as the moon slowly dissolves away,
i am left with a celestial body
imprinted on my palm,
and the world is filled
with one less contradiction.

let it be understood
the fall of icarus was a predetermined tragedy.
a boy, spiteful of his father.
a deep longing for the attention of others.
falling from the sky,
that would surely raise heads.

but did it?
no, now poor icarus is dead.
too engrossed in his own tragedy,
he forgot of his mortality,
the one we must all face
head on, through this life.

better to live a life of solitude, reclusion,
and simple stature
than to fall with the purpose of creating a splash
that would eventually be misunderstood as a fish
to the farmers tending their crops
and the shipmen heading to harbor.

yes, icarus knew of the limits of wax
in the presence of sun, the elixir of life.
a calculated risk, one he took cautiously.
he fell to the sea, as an angel from heaven.
but no one saw an angel.
no one saw icarus.
no one saw anything.

i painted the roof of my shed a bright red.
and the walls a muted blue.
and the wheat that surrounds the shed
that i work in, that i toil within the confines of,
already paints the hills
that catch my eye through the refracting window pane
a warm, golden yellow.

could i have left the wood raw?
yes, of course.
exposed to the elements, it would have rusted
to a dull yet natural pigment.

but who would know that the shed was mine?
besides, i had so much leftover paint
from when i made my kitchen blue
and my bedroom red.
not to mention that my bathroom is green
and my hallway is orange.

so it only felt fitting to extend the colorful invitation
to my shed.
and while the wood does chip
from the occasional rainstorm,
i can always reapply a thin layer of paint.

each and every day, i step from the orange hallway
into the yellow sea of wheat,
meander my way over to the shed,
touch the cool blue,
and bask under the hot red above my head.
and wonder what it would be like
to live without color.