Member Poem

I used to jump off of the couch

To see if I could fly

I was seven at the time

And I swore that every time I leapt

The ground found me later then the last

I used to hold my hand out at patches of leaves

Trying to bend the wind to my will

It never worked at first, but still

The times when the air lifted the dead things

I swore I was made of magic

I used to ride my bike around the block

As fast I could

To see if I could make time stop

And every time I saw my mother outside

I swore she was frozen in the moment

I know a boy by the name of Danny

Who could teleport at night

He would focus and focus until he fell asleep on the floor

When he woke up in his bed the next morning,

he was convinced he was a super hero

I knew a girl named Alexis

Who could grow gills at will

She would swim for amazing amounts of time

Which for us was more than a minute

The first time I saw it I swore she was a mermaid

The three of us

Would play on our block

Sure of our ever growing powers

And the vast amount of responsibility we now procured

We were the most powerful beings of our home towns

And our curfew was 7pm for supper and bedtime

Time proved too fast to stop with my bike

As we progressed

We grew out of our sureties and into obscurity

A process of adolescent addling that left us mere mortals in middle school

Humble humans in high school

And confused, controlled, convinced magic was unreal, collegiate graduates

Being congratulated by the same people who taught us when we were young

That miracles were possible

That anything was possible if you tried hard enough

We were pushed into the world with no couch to jump off of

Told to fly on the seat of our pants

But our asses have been kicked since grade six

And the will to move mountains beaten down to something that couldn’t move a leaf

I used to swear that with the raise of my hand

The winds would change

Now the leaves lie still on our empty street.

I know that time can’t be stopped by rubber wheels

And that flying isn’t as easy as I had thought

I know that when I command the wind to blow

That happenstance assists me

I know that when I will life into this world

When they command the winds with coincidence

When they slow time with bike chains

When they jump off of couches into full flight

I’ll swear they’re made of magic