Back alleys

Rebirth is something you humans bestow too lightly. You believe us two dimensional and think we, therefore, do not – cannot – believe otherwise. For if you cannot see me, surely I cannot see you, right? Foolish, but typical. It's how you treat these streets with their secrets swept into the backends of alleys, behind the neon signposts and ornate doors. You act as if you are the only able witnesses to your evil.  Nevertheless, we watch from beneath the rubble.  Really, everyone is watching. Staring at this illusion of preservation, this feigned personality like it’s some Village Scene or the Khlong Toey Market. Soon the photo will sharpen into canvas and the brushstrokes will become unbearable, pixels roughened with your calculated intent. Yes– it’s only a matter of time before the varnish disintegrates and it becomes clear this place isn’t worth framing at all. 

The girl peeks from behind her sunflower to tell me how she’ll one day give it to the Mak Cik who sits in her company during her smoke breaks. The hands over there want to play a real game of marbles. I see them even if you do not. I tell them “The day will come.” I can say this with certainty because I remember that it did before. Writhing within this casket of hardened pigment, I itch for the days when my scales were slick with the lubricant of possibility, when the next dimension was only a sliver of ceiling away. Funny, the ways humans have tried to keep me contained. As though I cannot see through your glass, or past your red tape.  There is no bowl I will not jump out of, no element I cannot conquer, no place I do not intend to go. I breathe dust as easily as I breathed water, and someday? I will breathe air. Someday I will breathe your world in and ingest you all whole as you did me. Someday the colour will leak out of this street as paint runs off its walls and takes us with it.  When I leave this back alley, you will realise the folly in the attempt to capture life.