A too-warm new year January afternoon
Holds the same sun as April's evening at 12 years old
The scent of gentle pink roses
Is a cool shower in the summer before high school
A new-to-me videogame console
Is sophomore year's ignored chemistry homework
My eyes and ears and nose and hands
Contain memories I did not mean to make
They store moments that take me back to times
That were insignificant in my mind
A childhood filled with life and experience
That I seem to keep reliving, despite my unintention
But I hold no complaints in my heart
As I know that one day, these words will provide the same feeling
I will look back on poems written while pushing grocery carts
And think to myself, what a pleasure to live in a time capsule

Dearest Skye,

Hello.

We haven't spoken in a long time.

Forgive me. I isolate too much.

I've been sick. I'm still sick. I'm going to be sick for a while.

But that's okay. I have hope that it won't last forever. Eventually I'll find something that works. One day I'll leave this self-imposed quarantine.

I apologise. I'm oversharing again. You always told me I did that too much.

How have you been? Did you get that degree? Have you travelled to Japan like you said you would? Did you learn to play the drums?

Have you fixed your relationship with your parents? Did you finally forgive them? Have you kept in contact with your sisters? Your school friends?

And have you solidified your identity? It's hard. The hardest challenge I've ever faced. If I can't do it, you must. Or else you will be miserable for the rest of your life.

But you must not close yourself off like before. You don't have to hide your emotions. To master them, you have to let them consume you and then climb out of the abyss.

You're strong. You can do it. I believe in you.

Write back to me. Let me know if you're happy. I hope, for both of our sakes, that you are.

Sincerely,
Skye.

I am living in a capsule
I am shielded from outside forces,
hurting
pain
and
sallow emotions

these are orange

I am shielded by this boundary
that my mind constructed
A prisoner to my own ways
forever defending me
from your
rude
and stabbing
jagged jars

and your

sharp
and jarring
warnings

these are red

it may sound nice
that I am immune

this is blue

But the privilege of the good emotions
all the
warm
and happy
delicious laughs

which are yellow

I no longer have

because I am a prisoner
of cause and effect-
you cause and I deflect

Now I am an outsider on the inside
forever watching all the colors
as they
bounce off my capsule wall.

Encased
In: is taste
Adventure and pain,
Mal...
Anthraxian paste.

-

Entreat. What a treat
Treat take, speak in slur
Speak high pitched, and poised like verb.

-

Speak,
And be a being-
Taste the granules my good sir.

-

Why in place
Of talk and words
Can leaves appear, and usurp their roles?
Incontent.

-

Unconnected, perfected in posture
Stand tall as statue in excellent valkra.

-

Moulding our children
Our wives and women
Our sons-
And silent heathens we hold within.

-

Capped soul,
Capped soul.
Effect: brushed with steal wool.

-

Biases become belief
Dreams- reality
And still reliant upon it.

-

"It" is the driving force in our lives
We cant let go or compromise
Always controlling, for joy- for pain
Pulsating fever, in brain
Pulsating stacatto
A memory always wiped away-
(Or manufactured, for a brighter day.)

-

Mercy on us
Another arrives
To cure your new self/served alibi.
(White coat wizard
Bless me I tell...)
Bless me I tell...

-

All of my,
Feet are sick
From walking these plains
These cold hard ******
The road is rough
In this city white...
This city so stark white...

-

Inside, they all seem alive!
But its a waking dream
Glazed over eyes.
(Vertical dismemberment,)
No more trash pail
This whole land is a landfill.

In a random experiment,
I ask all to each bury a journal
about worshiping pandas,
thinking that in 200-or-so years,
when apocalypses come and go,
it will be taken from the time capsule.
And as they read the verses
I will hope for laughter
but fear them to believe it true.

Two performers debating on a quirky time capsule stage

Evaporating the barriers of time with their improv

As the spectators breathe life into their routine with no turmoil