I’m an Assemblage

I’m an assemblage of
stereotypes, of
false beliefs, ideologies,
and memes.

Lines and lines of
code are carved
on the walls of
my mind.

The codes keep rewriting themselves,
but the traces of
the first lines of
code
never fully fade.

For a long time, my goal was
to rid myself of
everything that isn’t me
to see what remained.

The plan was to rebuild from
scratch, from
nothingness, or from
whatever remained when
everything that isn’t me was removed from
me.

I understand now
that,
when everything that isn’t me is removed,
what remains isn’t me.
What remains is traces,
the residues of what was.

They Stand in the Way

Afterimages of
memes
and residues of
reels
still hover in my head. They
linger and stand in the way
of…

They stand in the way.

All I can do is wait
until they
sink deeper into me
or just
just
finally
vanish. But
I’ve been waiting
and for so long,
and I cannot get past the brain fog.

Driving in a Sea of Clouds

A sea of clouds beneath us.
Mountain chains
like frozen shadows
of surging waves.
The setting sun sinking into the fog
reminds me of the
yolk of a hard boiled egg.
And then, there’s the silhouette of
a mountain, like an island in the middle of
the sea of
clouds, and its peak reminds me of
the tip of
an iceberg.

The steering wheel of the car I’m driving
suddenly feels like the helm of a massive ship,
and I am the captain of that ship.

And now, the car dives like a submarine
into the fog.
I turn the headlights and the fog lights on.
I turn the hazard lights on,
and
its
clicking
sound
becomes our metronome.

I drive slowly,
very slowly.

My wife is in the back seat
next to my seven-month-old son,
who’s sleeping peacefully
in his car seat.

I keep on driving,
and
I drive slowly, very slowly.
And the fog
never
ends.
We can’t see anything.
“I can’t see anything,” my wife says.
“Please, be careful.”
Will the fog ever
end?
And the fog never ends
until it suddenly
finally
ends,
and
we can see
the road ahead of us
again.