Playing Paused

It's 9 o'clock. My life is on pause. The trees blow past me in the wind. I follow the sun as it sets, and I think, "My foot isn't touching the ground." A friend runs past, like the roadrunner, dust flying twelve feet in the air. I shout, but my breath puffs like a balloon and pops. I think, "If only I could inhale." I think, "'If only' is synonymous to 'should'." I should inhale, but there is only to do or to not do.

My name is Galen and my life is on pause. I think, "I'll catch a train to Princeton. I'll get up early to get to the station in time to catch the train." I think, "I may be only quoting a friend." I hold my foot aloft, like I'm in a marching band, but I don't play the trumpet. Instead I watch a small fish chase a large fish in a TV in a shop. The smiling clerk speaks in clipped sentences. I hear the music, but I don't play a trumpet. I hear the bass, the dialogue, the score and the silence. The movie plays till the credits, and they roll by like a bus.

I see a bus, a brown bus; I see a child in a brown sweater, seventies style with the popped yellow collar and rose colored glasses. He carries a guitar which weeps, and the tears blur my eyes. He plays and I think, "My fist is clenched. My face is wet." The wind blows a sign, a bag and a dirty man who smiles with twelve teeth. I think, "He gets a lot of smile from each tooth." I think, "I would smile if I had twelve teeth." I would smile, but there is only to smile, with thirty-eight teeth, or not.

On my couch, my life is on pause. My finger hovers on the remote and I think, "If only I could push play." If only I could.

Won't you? The dog is barking, the rain falling, the leaves blowing and it's September now. Push play, before Labor Day, or I'll miss the first day of school, or I'll miss my plane.