I Like to Pretend I’m Dying

“We are here to find 

that dimension within ourselves

that is deeper than thought.”

                     ~Eckhart Tolle

The only thing I know

how to do is play.

I can probably out-play you. 

I’m exhausting. 

I don’t like saying good-bye.

I am always playing.

Its all I know how to do.

I’ll stay in the sandbox

long after you have to go.

I don’t mind playing alone.

It’s my saving grace.

If you come over

be prepared for

vivid recreations with army men,

maybe even finger painting.

I like to pretend I’m dying.

It started with reading “Love Story”

way too early. 

I like being sad.

I like to feel things

heightened by losing them

one by one.

I will make a perfect

old man.

I like faking accidents.

Just the thought of

falling down the stairs

for an entrance

makes me laugh.

I do that at parties.

When I was ten

my neighborhood turned on me.

I fell in love with everyone

with my whole body.

I couldn’t contain it.

Parents objected to my having

crushes on their children.

They knew I was different.

I didn’t feel real.

They watched me scream

out their windows.

I loved to cry

and play dead by the road.

To this day

I like to pretend I’m dying.

But I really want to be saved.

One of my favorite scenarios is

to almost die in a storm,

to fall down on the ground

in a raging rain

that nearly drowns out

my dying last words: “Help me,”.

I like it in snow too.

I love it when the elements

threaten my destruction.

There is nothing better than

a gale force wind.

I can work a wind

like nobody's business.

One summer I learned

how to cast spells

with a dead tree branch.

I could change myself

into things.

That’s how I survived.

To this day I am

always the first 

to spot the moon.

It gets me nowhere

but it can be endearing.

When I was young

I had a wound

that matched with what I wore.

When I got older

I had a scar

that wore me

beneath my clothes.

Older still

I lost a limb

and

learned

how to pray.

Peter Valentyne

January 17th, 2019