Sobriety: Day 223
I’ve heard there are two types of fun,
though I haven’t independently verified this.
Type One you have in the moment:
like on a roller coaster, but
that’s an extreme example. More like
enjoying time in the company of friends,
consciously, while it’s happening.
Presence required in more ways than one.
But my performance of this has always
been stilted. It’s a foreign language
and I’m past the age of brain plasticity.
My tongue refuses to bend to the words
and I can’t seem to get conjugations right.
To native speakers, I must come off
as comical or dim. I’ve relied on Type Two:
reflection required to see it was had.
A landscape you can only map from a distance.
Until I entered into a pact of mutual forgetting,
an asylum of sleep. Now I have to
restock the shelves in my memory.
Who’s this mysterious character
stowing away aboard the ship?
I didn’t remember his gruesome end
as food for the protomolecule.
And since when did Naomi betray the crew’s trust
by hiding a sample near an asteroid?
And if I could rewatch the show
of my son’s infancy,
what would surprise me then?
Not the time in the small hours I rocked
and fed him a bottle shitfaced,
turning my head to send vomit splashing
across the hardwood floor.
We were still discovering dried splatter
on the baseboards a year later.
At least I can say I’m enjoying this show.
In a way I suppose I’m fortunate
there are still a few things I can experience
for the first time a second time.
Chad Rutter is an emerging poet originally from rural Nebraska now residing in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He received an MFA from the University of Minnesota in sculpture. For several years he has written for a mid-sized music publication about heavy metal. His poetry has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Rust and Moth, Anti-Heroin Chic, Midwest Noir, Ballast Journal, Novus Literary Arts Journal, The Calendula Review, and Right Hand Pointing.
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