.45 alien

currently listening to
valley of the shadow,
thomas newman, from little women

i am the alien,
alien am i.

go home or die
some said
to other aliens
though not me,
i'm white
and rich
and so not fully alien am i.

like ET,
like superman,
like the prawns,
these landless modern nomads with their precious passports and their laptop computers
family known as photos
and friends known as pixels
connections of transcience
as we fly between groups of people
- for it is not of distance, we're defined -
but simply apartness,
apartheid,
the absence of an intimacy
that would comfort us by dispelling the illusionary fear
that you are not really there.

and of course
the pictures shimmer
and the noises haunt
the smell of pine needles from yesterday's tree
memories from another time and another space
that are clearly not this one.

and being made to realize such a thing,
as aloneness becomes defined by absence, not presence,
as reminiscing is reduced to merely missing,
missing;
using that part of the sense
that should instead relish the present
and focusing it on the past.

eyes and ears and heart are elsewhere

elsewhere,
nowhere,
somewhere,
anywhere but on what lies before. on what lies here.

then later, i'll spend the future
missing this.



as i float.



oh dear.