THEORETICAL ❋ Parker Baldin

maybe something simple like a car finds you
shows up one day
flashes it’s lights

like it knows you

moving, hidden by the trees, you keep walking
but the nervousness is there, the feeling they know
who you are

maybe the breath of a stranger, on a bus or at a party
causes you to startle, to jump a little bit

the feeling that the place, the environment doesn’t
seem to understand you

your ability to speak up seems disrupted
like it didn’t exist to begin with

maybe one day a woman one person ahead of you
in a cafeteria line is your mother ten years ago
in her twenties

hearing her voice and the way she strikes her
debit card on the machine magically similar

you know it’s not her, but you don’t even speak

maybe one day a feature on your body disgusts you
you ask your friends.
make small, self-referential jokes

and the reality of it is that it’s true and nothing seems
in your power to change.

looking at yourself in the mirror before leaving, you feel comfortable
you feel like the city you live in makes up for this,
that somehow what and who you are have a home
a little setting for your purpose

maybe one day you wake up without a blueprint

you don’t understand you’re loneliness, because who are you even?

maybe someday an opportunity tries to get your attention
it shifts, like a lover explaining a bad dream in the morning
but you’re too sleepy to pay much attention

maybe the opportunity then goes downstairs
makes coffee for itself, showers, begins slowly, incrementally
over days, maybe months, to drift away from you
it realizes that maybe its opportunity is for someone
else

Is there a way to know about this