Landmines
It’s a separate organism trapped in the innards of its parent. There’s a whole lot of meiosis going on. As you point to the faded illustration with your bitten nail, I can’t help but stare at your hairy wrist.
The pollen lands on the pistil. Just imagine, millions of beings encapsulated in these tiny specks, carried by the wind or insects and hoping they won’t end up in puddles or chimneys or gutters. I move my head closer to the page and breathe in the sweat-infused air. Later that day, I play Minesweeper and feel this vaguest, most difficult to define yearning.
We are drunk in full sun, at high noon. Can’t wrap our heads around the beauty of the vegetation. I try not to think you took me on this trip just to make me forget you are leaving. Two weeks of doing manly things like pissing in the woods and lighting fires and talking about all the girls you’ve slept with. Manly things like watching you undress. You show me a water-filled jar alive with the swift water fleas, the gelatinous hydras, the deadly two-eyed flatworms. I wish I could also enclose this moment in a piece of glass.
We talk over the phone now and then as I drink my way through the angst of my twenties, the aimlessness of my thirties, the low-flame depression of my forties. Our phones become watches become chips become implants. Our hair becomes grey or, in your case, nonexistent. Fat creeps over our organs and under our skin. The pollen tube drills deeper into the cellulose flesh.
The road is wet and black, the stars aplenty. Hours later, I’m in your spacious living room, on your expensive sofa, holding your trembling head against my chest. I wonder if the salt from your tears will leave flowery patterns on my shirt. When the worst crying is over, I talk nonsense to distract you. Just imagine, the pollen tube finally reaches the entrapped creature, one of the sperms fuses with the egg, and a whole new life begins.
Originally published in Foglifter Volume 4 Issue 1 (2019)