Tesseract

by Rose Lafleur
Staff Writer

Shuffling along with basic
traffic this morning with
a spider friend, my pinky,
causing the window to
leak gasoline air and time,
inches towards the opening,
involuntarily spiraling
outwards, churning me with
it. I am in a place I can’t
quite remember. A damp
basement, a lonely classroom,
a warm museum, or snowy
sheets. As my car door opens,
the memory of the smell of
home. Now, I jitter on this
radiating bench, feet
tapping to headphones that
I left in my bag, fuckboys
vaping in the courtyard
and others romanticizing
in the grass. The beat of
my foot crumbles the pavement
and it vacuums me down
under the table. I fall up
until up becomes down,
and I lay in a bed of water
lilies. I rediscover my
hips, then my extremities,
then my fingernails, aching
to scratch something
in the air. My wrinkled pinky
stretches, and touches soft skin,
old pyjamas, familiar scent.
I open my eyes to blurriness,
but I know I am home again,
with you.