Now That I've Had Some Time to think

I’m not a poet. All I can do is list my confessions with some semblance of order and hope for the best. All we can do is hope for the best. When I was a little kid, I used to lay on my deck, sharp shoulder blades dug deep into plastic wood, and I’d cover my face. At least, that’s what it looked like from the outside. But if you could see through my fingers, there’d be nothing but a patch of blue sky. That piece of sky was mine; I found the same place every time. Try to tell me otherwise. The beautiful thing about a blank canvas, a vast, wide open sky, is that it can be anything a little kid wants. More often than not, it was the beach horizon, and if I’d had the guts to take the frame away from my face, there would be sand. There would be water. There’d be the kind of immediacy I never could find in the slow way June became July. Forget six feet apart. Summer vacation felt six years away, so my daily teleportation had been discovered out of necessity. 

There are a lot of things we’re doing out of necessity. Lying on the deck with my face towards the clouds doesn’t feel the same anymore. I’m afraid it never will. The key to teleportation is to believe you’re already there, but these days I’m constantly six feet away from everything I want. I’ve thought a lot about what that kind of distance looks like. It’s the length of most full beds. It’s shorter than Michael Jordan but taller than Napoleon Bonaparte. It’s arbitrary, because nobody, absolutely nobody is going to take out their ruler between object A and object B and wonder if the poor monsieur can sleep comfortably. 

I don’t sleep comfortably. I’m sure somebody is wondering. The trouble with doing teleportation in a dark room is that the only place to go is inside my own head. Darkness looks like darkness no matter where you are. The difference lies in how it feels. Some nights quiver, some drag, but regardless I’ve been given far too much time to think. It hurts me that every day feels like Sunday. I miss baseball. I regret every single thing I’ve never said. I wonder if he remembers he called me pretty one late October night. I hope he doesn’t think about it as much as I do. It kills me to want and be wanted. I hate how selfish I’ve become. I’m really sorry about the timing. Apologies are just dust after the hourglass breaks. It’s been broken for a month, but I could really use a drink to soothe the dryness. 

There are things I will never get back. Teleportation is not the same thing as time travel. I’ve tried, believe me. I don’t have much whiskey left, and the mask I used to wear every day is no longer enough to get by. I want to be happy, someone said to me, I forget what that feels like. I think I remember. It burns the tip of my tongue like that last drop of Jack. It’s sunlight, it’s skin on skin, it’s throwing your cap in the air as high as it will go without worrying where it will come down. It’s taking a leap of faith. It’s the color orange, but a specific shade, you know the one. It’s a place, the one you’re thinking of right now. It’s a person, and if you remember that, they don’t have to be six feet away. There are still things I will never get back. Don’t tell me it’s okay. Sing me a lullaby through the screen, and I promise I’ll move on. One day soon, I’ll lay out on my back deck, covering everything but my piece of sky, and wonder how I’ve changed since the world set me free.

About the Author

Kate Knab is a senior English major with a concentration in Creative Writing and minor in Spanish at Arcadia University. Along with being a Fiction and Poetry Editor for Quiddity, she is the treasurer of Sigma Tau Delta and an editor for The Compass. When she's not traveling or writing, Kate spends her free time trying to teach Spanish to her goldfish. If that proves to be a dead end for fame and fortune, she aspires to be a writer and full-time editor.