If I live long enough, I’m told
I will see the annihilation as simple
as the blink of a bubble.

That annihilation I wished
would have surprised me the time
I fed my starvation
with sandwiches in an empty café,
television sputtering clearly static voices,
me staring
at mute moving mouths.

That annihilation I wished
while standing tall, taller than my father,
as a hovering smile on his shoulders above
a triumphant green field.
When he gave me the thumbs up, it
searched me and found me
in that confused, relieved haze of ecstasy,
breathing on me like a love, whispering
“everything was okay for me
and it will be for you.”

I sit now watching moving people,
feeling the fibers in my limbs
suddenly stiffen like taut strings tied to
beyond the chair, beyond the floor
and beyond the earth that made this place
appear here, now, out of infinite possibilities.
I sit and watch faces, their strange parts,
gingerly realize all of mine, and struggle
to laugh off the fear that they are moving
(and I am laughing)
from something called instinct.

I can’t help imagining
the universe that sees me annihilated
this very second.

I wonder where I’ve really been.
I wonder where my remains have gone.