Impulses

]I have a lot of room to speak on impulses. They define most actions. You see whether

you think you can or can’t, you’re right. So, I always think I can, and I think that’s the way to

live. My coach would tell me “you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” Or, perhaps that was

something I read on the wall in seventh grade math. I used to write the witticisms in chalk on the

driveway. If the neighborhood couldn’t see what I saw, I’d teach them myself. Follow one pink

arrow, you’ll learn of Pythagorean’s Theorem or follow the green stars, you’ll unravel Newton’s

law of universal gravitation.

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, if one man and a few apple seeds can change the

world, maybe I can too. It’s a plum job, yet I’m red as a cherry. Watch, go pear shaped, and you

may be the apple of someone’s eye. I am no apple, I’d say I’m more of an orange. Float like a

butterfly, or sting like a bee? I used to be cool, but now I feel flushed. I used to see the fireflies

twinkle, twinkle little star, right by me as I sat there drawing on the driveway. I’d test the waters,

drawing a bit on the sidewalk, see if anyone noticed I had extended my powers beyond those

allotted to me by my parent’s deed. A hint of blue flowered onto the cracked cement, untagged

by any street artist.

Squirrels float by in coffee stained mugs, my parent’s cupboard flooded by the dam’s

break. They said too much pressure caused her to release. It’s a shame she doesn’t know how

diamonds form under immense pressure. Are we going to talk about the squirrels?

The flood waters have been rising tremendously, yet it’s just the first week in April. They do say, April showers bring May flowers.

The May Flower, The Nina. The Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. I bet they’d navigate clear

across these waters, scooping up 100% of the squirrels they discover. I wonder whether they

knew the lands they discovered were to become the party island of middle-class Americans

everywhere. Bahama-mama, though I search, I cannot find the Bahamas from my window, but I feel.

Feeling the waters rush around me, I wade. I’m walk down my driveway as white water mixes with pink chalk. I can see the chalk rise like clouds, off the hot asphalt and away toward some unknown body.

I walk to a tree, and wrap my arms around it’s brown, charred bark. A squirrel floats past my waist, and slowly I pluck it from its distress. I held the creature, and reflected on geographical sciences. When the flood waters cleared, should I map Cristobal Colon’s route through the Caribbean? I placed the squirrel back into the tree and watch as thousands of starlings flitted to and fro. Swaying left in the sky, then right, then up and down. Birds of a feather, flocking together like black spirits seeping into the congested universe.

But what you see, is what you get. Squirrels floating by in coffee mugs, is what the universe gets.