I WALK

[poetry]

I WALK

like a younger sister. When I travel, I get nervous. In order to dial down the pool of anxiety I have, I take large steps. I flail my arms, undulating all parts of my body that will rub off peculiarly. I take large steps because I’m small. I think small, I look small, I am small. 

  

I take large steps because it’s noticeable. Every sidewalk deserves an adventure. And so I dance on every corner. 

  

The autumn season skipped over New York this year, and that transitory position between the daunting summer and purring winter hovers over every seam of my khaki jacket. The days seem longer, and the months seem to run on into Sussex County fields. 

  

I walk like a younger sister because while others bloomed precariously, all I knew how to do was imagine. To float on sunflowers was the epidemic of my brain. 

  

   It still is. 

 I imagine that California provides rows of tusk yellow nature for me to bask in until infinity. Or at least until my death at twenty–seven because that is my infinite number. 

  

I think about California and the generalized ideas of a falling sun because it’s always shining, or the admiration that comes with being their radiant citizen. I think about California because New York does everything but sojourn me. Every congested train with stenches I do not love is not the reason of my outgrowth. The problem is not in the setting. Every time I take the 7 Train, relaxing beside the wall, I notice the lineaments of each building with indented violet windows. I enjoy listening to the accompanying passengers’ music. I’m aware of how utopic our sky is. I’m aware of it all. 

Again, the setting is not the problem. 

  

It is the fact that I am a person who doesn’t feel like a person. Unless I’m taking bigger steps on the sidewalk. 

  

Doing the actual most; standing out is the motive. The difference in New York is that if normalcy is the providence that helps you sleep at night— you just don’t matter. Sometimes I’m aware that having to matter to people is ambiguous in itself. Unethical because fuck the world and fuck the people in it but I’m small. Figuratively, every pathway swallows each trait that I have because every personality trait is not seeable. 

I’m not seeable. Unless I’m taking bigger steps. I walk like your younger sister because my world is painted in floral. I walk like your younger sister because I don’t know how to be an adult. 

I walk like the assumed child because I live in my imagination, where nothing else will have to matter.