aftersome
A Poem
I am living in the aftersome
these bizarre accidents
stacked on top of one another
forming a house of cards
that won’t topple, no matter
how hard I blow on it
because I am here for a reason
even if I bounced wildly
with my seatbelt on
driving past mile markers
which served as these
harmless decision points
and acted like sliding doors
and left me welling in astonishment
that my form was so solid
amidst all the chaos around me
It’s odd to feel fated
and completely inconceivable
within two short breaths
based on the same winding life
twisting a path that somehow,
even with all the turbulence,
feels smooth and effortless
as if all the crinkles
just got ironed out
and the sun started shining
and the clouds peeled back
leaving me laying on my front lawn
staring up at the sky
in absolute wonderment
that I am who I am
and I am where I am
here
in the aftersome
aftersome — astonished to think back on the bizarre sequence of accidents that brought you to where you are today — as if you’d spent years bouncing down a Plinko pegboard, passing through a million harmless decision points, any one of which might’ve changed everything — which makes your long and winding path feel fated from the start, yet so unlikely as to be virtually impossible. From The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows.
