Suburban tract homes all in a row.

Sourdough pancakes, griddled in bacon fat.

Family dinners around a carefully set table,

or TV dinners on trays.

Blanket forts and Saturday morning cartoons.

Beloved dog & cat smuggled into the way back

on drive-in movie nights.

Big Wheels™ and red wagons, and a purple bike

with streamers coming out of the handles,

and training wheels.

Roller skates with metal wheels.

Chalk-drawn windy roads and freeways,

playing late into a summer night, until mom

called out the door, “Dinnertime!”

That’s where I’m from.

[scs_alt]

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When I was young, I never quite comprehended the jokesters

who skated through life, not giving a flip. As far as I could tell,

life was serious business.

I looked askance at those who acted otherwise. Small wonder that

I forgot how to play.

I gripped my cards and held them close. No risk meant I’d stay

safe. Or so I thought.

Locked doors contain their own kinds of dangers.

Flung open, they invite all elements inside–

scary, perhaps, but also a lot more fun.

Plus, in the end,

I just got tired of saying no.

[scs_alt]

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There is the moment before–

the end cap

on all the years before,

full to the brim

of everything else

but you.

The you-shaped space

an amorphous void,

its edges fuzzy.

There is the moment during–

the connection of eyes,

a noticing,

an awareness

of existence,

not yet knowing

who

you will be

to me,

who

the you

that is

will become,

so the moment after

only acquires

significance

later,

like the view

from the top

of a mountain–

invisible,

unknown,

until that

long

trek

upwards

has

been

made.

[scs_alt]

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A semester of lectures and movies showing

corpses being pulled from shattered remains

of cars. 3 Saturdays behind the wheel,

the instructor explaining the finer points

of right-hand turns, stopping distances,

and lane dividers (“dummy bumpers”).

My father wincing as I crunch the gears

of his neon green X19. My mother shrieking

as I do the same in our orange VW bus.

(Manual transmissions are hard!) Then

finally, my 16th birthday at the DMV–all

nerves & sweat while the humorless assessor

takes notes in the passenger seat–

and the much-awaited license.

[scs_alt]

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I want to…

but I don’t have time.

but I don’t have the resources.

but I’m not good enough.

but I’m not ready.

but everyone else is already doing it

so much better than I ever could.

but I’m scared.

but I can’t.

Prescription:

Take a scalpel

& excise that word

from your vocabulary.

Perform a but-ectomy.

Replace it with the word “and,”

that lover of possibility,

and watch magic happen.

Turn your “yes, buts” into “yes, ands,”

and watch your life

expand.

[scs_alt]

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