This is not a Sunday

826 michigan, in all its glorious and playful efforts held a 4 day workshop on poetry forms from a variety of places. Wrote this one, a form that repeats the last line of the stanza (or in my case, toes the line of repetition). Don't remember what it's called or what the significance of it is. All in all this is just an excuse to not write a self-ethnography on my last week as a starving college student (probably won't explain that one further, so make of it what you will). Never really dabbled in poetry. Thought the ether was the best place to take a first whack. Hells yeah. Sorry to all those reading - the first time is bound to be messy :)

My bag today feels daintier

than normal toting commands

i'm well aware from my light load

that this is not a sunday

I trek across the paved campus

boots marking where i came from

i hate the snow but i have found

less so when it's a sunday

I find the nature of the day

tied to last night's reflections

so subsequently it would be

much better on a sunday

Today i'm angsty, bitter, rash

the snow - my source of anger

it's taken out on snow's dear cousin

i devour a sundae

Something about a midmorn brunch

equipped with toast and bacon

seems most appropriate to be had

when it's a lazy sunday

Program alarm to 9:20

a time i'm still not used to

i close my eyes, and fall asleep

with dreams of this next sunday

Wake up and stretch, 11:12

languid, content, well-rested

i knew this day would finally come

oh shit, its not a sunday

Exhibit 47: lack of sleep

It's a 15 minute walk back from main street - 20 if you doddle, 10 if you jog. Now, i've never experienced the latter, but i'm sure that it's just as enjoyable on a day like today. But the doddlers aren't out at this hour. You see a clear shift between 6 and 7, when dusk turns to dark, and everyone scampers in the direction of a "safer" location. It's relatively nice out. Well, relative to yesterday and my speculation of tomorrow. The air is thick and still, coating me in its protection. But molecules on top of molecules incorporate every movement of the people around me into my steps, actions, breaths. I start to resent the brisk-walkers, mixing their stress with my calm, tying their passing air into mine, dragging forward to a destination. I have no direction, so i follow, turning wherever the contrived wind takes me.

• The woman on my left has in interview: her briefcase full of neatly stacked papers that mirror the captured snow resting on top. She shakes off the flakes - that's genuine leather the weather is ruining. I make a sharp left turn with her anxiety.
• Two boys shove passed me, 15, maybe 16 at most. They have painted on mustaches. I remember doing that. They laugh - a mixture of rebellion and tension. We all sense a foreboding grounding in their future.
• A group of sorority girls rope me in and i'm trailing behind their giggles and spliced sentences. A whirlwind of hairtosses throws me off their path.

There's lampposts scattered evenly on each side of me. They start sparse, one every minute or so, extending my shadow along the paved ground, passing by and through me. As i enter campus the lights start to concentrate; cluster around me like orbiting stars. My feet are bound by rings of dancing silhouettes. They circle, one after another, racing in front and behind me. Free only when my tattered boot leaves the ground, the shadows too celebrate their momentary liberation. Legs dissolve into concrete, they disperse in all directions just to be yanked back to my body like a dog on a chain with the heavy step of my foot. The lamps turn in my direction, eager to participate in my one man show. I get stage fright - freeze - my shadows gawk at me in shock. You've practiced this a thousand times their faceless expressions tell me as i call for my line. I stare at the open intersection, no cars from either direction. My shadow's less cautious, posed halfway across the street. I lift my foot up and it takes off, floating down east u, past the bank, over the painted picnic tables, around the dumpsters, up the telephone wires. From the coat pockets of my cast jacket, it takes out a large umbrella and starts to dance across - a remarkable balancing act from a silhouette with very little practice. Staring upward, i clap and nod, whistle and beckon as the wind catches my shadows umbrella and sends it floating down to my feet. Hovering an unnoticeable amount above the ground, it curtsies and melds back into me. What a show.