Time stood stagnant as the darkness crept in and distorted surroundings faded
He thought about his first friend, how they’d met
On a beach collecting eponymous Herman ***** by the bucket-full
Her face and name were gone, but she was born August twelfth
His first ice cream cone, the way the green mint melty soup
Ran down his hand; he hated sticky fingers
The comfort in his veins made him cloudy, the track on his inner arm throbbed
He thought about the bully who’d beaten him senseless
For spilling lunch milk on his shoes
And that girl whose clumsiness he’d claimed as his own
Who’d watched without a word and like all left him loner
He remembered his excitement at the first patch of beard
And how he’d stopped going to church when his brother
Finally left that chair and learned to fly
His eyes now drooped to poppy slits, but the flashes were ever blasting
He thought about sleep, his sweet retreat always
And what it was like to have had a family
He remembered a lecture from a physics professor
About chess and universe particles
The eternal contained in the tangible
Infinity carved from wood
The sideways eight ways in which one can be a mortal
And how everything ends the same
The branches become the seed
Can it all be so simple, he wondered
As the apartment floor grew distant
He thought of all the times he’d ****** up
And how in his rearview mirror, he wanted to
Embrace those moments, love them and
Ask them to be godparents to his unborn life
As he kissed the light goodnight, his only regret was
Having so many
He thought of everything
Then
He thought nothing