I stand staring into
the toilet waiting to piss
after brushing my teeth before bed
and though many things
in my life have changed
some have not:
like this moment
that I’ve lived
thousands of times
the tactical before bed piss
often it takes a while to come
but you know it’s worth the wait
to ensure that uninterrupted
seven hour sleep:
and in the midst of these thoughts
one night early September
everything goes dark,
just an instant,
then light again but different:
I’m in my old bathroom
four years ago
just like that
it flickers at first
and then it’s real
fully animated around me
I feel all of it
the hum of the extractor
the smell of frying garlic
from the apartment below
the harsh orange light
the nausea that hung over me:
because maybe I never left
and this is all a dream
another me is still in that bathroom-
connected to him I am-
and now we’ve switched bodies
I’m the one who never left
while he’s freaking out in
a place he’s never seen:
but as I flush the toilet
with my old flusher
and wash my hands in
my old sink
I think of you:
in my old bathroom
I never thought of you
never knew you existed,
and if I’m still there
then it means I never left,
and I never met you:
parallel realities break,
there’s a crack,
I feel it,
because my present,
you,
it’s an authentic feeling
that can’t exist in more than one:
and I’m back
staring at wooden shutters
a mosquito net
red bathroom rug beneath my feet:
it’s you that brought me back
and everything is different now
I know we exist in many places
all at once:
I saw the other side tonight
there is more than we ‘know’
hidden depth
instinctive and natural
maybe we forgot:
and maybe that’s what I felt
when I met you for the first time
winter night
dressed in gold
red hands and red eyes
I held out my hand
you smiled
and in that instance
I saw so much more
than just the colour
blue in your eyes.
